ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL WAR EFFORT

Hospitals (Domestic Workers)

Dr. Howitt: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the great shortage of domestic workers in hospitals, he will direct that women shall be enrolled for domestic work in hospitals in the same manner as for the Services?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. McCorquodale): I would refer my hon. Friend to the last part of the reply given to the hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) on 6th October.

Dr. Howitt: Is my hon. Friend aware that it is becoming more and more difficult for hospitals to function properly to-day with their present domestic staffs and that in the case of an emergency arising from enemy action the wounded would not be able to receive the attention which I know my hon. Friend would like them to have?

Mr. McCorquodale: We are, of course, aware of those difficulties, which are fully set out in the reply to which I have referred.

Mr. Messer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the effect of the changed arrangements whereby deferments are referred to the district man-power board is to make the position worse?

Mr. McCorquodale: I would not accept that.

Dr. Edith Surnrnerskill: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this shortage aggravates the nursing problem because nurses have to undertake domestic work, which they resent?

Mr. George Griffiths: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the man-power boards turn a blind eye almost all the time to this question?

Shipbuilding Strike, Tyneside

Mr. Maxton: asked the Minister of Labour whether he has completed his inquiry into the causes of the shipbuilding strike on the Tyneside; and whether he can inform the House as to the findings?

Mr. McCorquodale: My right hon. Friend is in communication with the organisations concerned on both sides and would prefer not to make any further statement at present.

Mr. Maxton: Do I understand that this stoppage was against the wishes of the organisation concerned? Does the Minister intend to make a proper inquiry into the grievances of a large body of men who struck against the wishes of then-union? Will he consult somebody other than the leaders of the organisation?

Mr. McCorquodale: I have nothing to add to my reply.

Mr. Maxton: But does the hon. Gentleman realise that that is rather a scurvy way of dealing with some tens of thousands of men whose method of working compares favourably with that of any body of workers in this country? Does it mean that, with another Parliamentary Recess coming, we are to have no answer at all, and does he realise that this matter has aroused considerable interest on Tyneside?

Mr. David Adams: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that deep-seated grievances in the matter of wages were not attended to for months?

Domestic Workers

Miss Rathbone: asked the Minister of Labour whether he has given attention to the problem of households employing unnecessarily large staffs of domestic workers who have hitherto escaped attention because the workers are above or below the present registration ages; and, in view of the importance of avoiding wastage of the available supply of domestic help, whether he will consider rationing the number of domestic workers allowed to households in proportion to the size of the household, with due weightage for invalids and young children?

Mr. McCorquodale: My right hon. Friend is considering my hon. Friend's proposal, but she will appreciate the difficulties involved in any such scheme, and before embarking upon it he would need to be satisfied that it would be likely to produce commensurate results.

Miss Rathbone: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many women who have been doing valuable paid or unpaid war work have been compelled to abandon it because they have had to do the whole of their own domestic household work? Is it fair that selfish women should be allowed, as at present, to hire so many manual workers on the excuse that they are below or above the registration age?

Mr. McCorquodale: I have every sympathy with this question. We are discussing it with the Women's Consultative Committee at the moment.

Directed Workers (Wages and Expenses)

Sir Irving Albery: asked the Minister of Labour whether, where he has directed men to leave their ordinary place of employment and work elsewhere and this has resulted in lowering their earnings and their incurring train travelling expenses, he contemplates any action to remedy this grievance?

Mr. McCorquodale: My right hon. Friend recognises that there are cases of this sort, as well as many others in which loss of earnings arises from war conditions without any direction from the Department. The rate of wages, including any allowance for travelling expenses, must in general be governed by the industrial agreements applicable to the new employment. He regrets that he cannot see any practicable method of making new arrangements for State subvention in these cases.

Sir I. Albery: Does my hon. Friend realise that these men do not complain so much of the hardship caused by the war as of injustice and inequality? Will he draw the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the fact that the effect of this is to impose double taxation when it comes to paying Income Tax?

Mr. McCorquodale: I am afraid we cannot depart from the principle of the rate for the job.

Mr. Stephen: Does the hon. Gentleman consider it just to impose additional taxation on these people as compared with other citizens?

Mr. McCorquodale: That is another question.

Superannuation Regulations

Sir I. Albery: asked the Minister of Labour whether he can now make a statement concerning superannuation regulations which hinder men from accepting paid work of national importance?

Mr. McCorquodale: My right hon. Friend has written to my hon. Friend about this.

Sir I Albery: On a point of Order. In putting this Question on the Order Paper, I did so because I believed it to be a matter of some public importance and because I desired to receive a reply which would also be available to the public. It seems rather to defeat that object for my hon. Friend to say that the Department has written to me.

Conscientious Objectors

Mr. Cecil Wilson: asked the Minister of Labour whether the Proclamation of 23rd July is still in force whereby only single women between the ages of 20 and 31 are liable for military and industrial conscription and that only such women between these ages have the right to register provisionally as conscientious objectors; and why Mary Cockcroft, of Sowerby Bridge, who is not yet 20 years of age, has been twice prosecuted for failing to comply with the direction of the Ministry and is now serving two months imprisonment, although she had no opportunity of appearing before a conscientious objectors' tribunal?

Mr. McCorquodale: The Proclamation of 23rd July, 1942, which is still in force relates only to conscription for the Forces. Directions to perform industrial work are given under Defence Regulation 58A and are not subject to any age limit, nor is there any provision for the registration of conscientious objection to such directions although in practice persons known to have conscientious objections are not directed to work closely connected with the military side of the war effort. I am having inquiries made into the individual case mentioned by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Wilson: How long are the inquiries likely to take?

Mr. McCorquodale: I hope to have the result very soon, especially as this case happens to be in my own constituency.

Hardship Tribunals (Chairmen)

Wing-Commander James: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is satisfied, in the light of his experience, that the chairmen of hardship tribunals are in all cases administering the Act satisfactorily; and whether, in cases in which there is sustained complaint, he can, and will, cause independent investigation with a view to changing the chairmen where warranted?

Mr. McCorquodale: My right hon. Friend is not aware of any material ground for dissatisfaction. The decisions of the statutory tribunals over which these chairmen preside are under certain conditions subject to appeal to the Umpire and could not properly be made the ground of any intervention by my right hon. Friend. Should there be apparently well-founded complaints in respect of other matters, my right hon. Friend has ample powers to take any action that may be necessary.

Wing-Commander James: If specific cases are brought to the Minister's notice, are we to understand that he has power to investigate and remedy them?

Mr. McCorquodale: Certainly, so long as they do not affect the actual decision and rulings of the Umpire thereon.

Marine Engineering Apprentices

Mr. Kirkwood: asked the Minister of Labour whether he grants deferment of calling-up to apprentices or journeymen marine engineers sitting for their fifth-year certificates; and what procedure is to be followed to obtain deferment in such a case?

Mr. McCorquodale: The normal deferment arrangements apply to apprentices or journeymen marine engineers, but there are no special arrangements for deferring the calling up of such men solely on the grounds that they are preparing for a certificate examination. The usual rule is that deferment is granted until the man finishes his apprenticeship or reaches his twentieth birthday, whichever is the earlier. If, however, my hon. Friend has any particular case in mind and will communicate with me, I will look into it.

Mr. Kirkwood: I will communicate with the hon. Gentleman, but I would like to ask him whether the attention of his Department has been drawn to the fact that at the moment we are short of marine engineers who are capable of going to sea. Is he aware that a number of men are just qualifying, finishing their time, and that if they get through, they will be capable of going to sea as second engineers?

Mr. McCorquodale: If the hon. Gentleman will communicate with me, I will certainly look into the matter.

Mr. Kirkwood: Thank you very much.

Oral Answers to Questions — ACCIDENT, IPSWICH

Mr. Thorne: asked the Minister of Labour whether he can give any information in connection with two men who were killed at Ipswich on Tuesday, 13th October, at a manure works, and what was the cause of the 10 tons of manure falling on the men?

Mr. McCorquodale: This unusual accident was due to the accumulation of material behind the boarding at the base of a shed with sloping walls in which this material was stored, and to the collapse of the boarding when the material below it was removed. Steps are being taken to prevent a recurrence.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION (GOVERNMENT POLICY)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the President of the Board of Education whether he has made progress respecting his prospective education proposals; and when he will be in a position to introduce these to the House?

The President of the Board of Education (Mr. Butler): Progress is certainly being made. I am not yet in a position to add anything to previous answers relating to the last part of the Question, which does not lie wholly within my discretion.

Mr. Sorensen: In view of the very long delay in considering this matter, could the right hon. Gentleman say when we are likely to receive an interim or full report?

Mr. Butler: Considering the magnitude of the issues involved, I would not accept the statement that delay has been unduly long. I am as keen as the hon. Member to make progress and to report to the House.

Mr. Sorensen: While fully appreciating the fact that the right hon. Gentleman should be as keen as I am, is he not aware that numerous educational bodies have been anxiously awaiting this report for some time?

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH

Venereal Disease

Mr. Barstow: asked the Minister of Health whether he proposes to take steps to compel compulsory notification of venereal disease, having regard to the increase of these diseases throughout the country?

The Minister of Health (Mr. Ernest Brown): I am considering what action can most appropriately be taken to check the spread of venereal disease, but, at the present time, I doubt whether the particular suggestion made by my hon. Friend is best calculated to secure this object.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the difficulty of dealing with carriers of venereal disease, and whether he will consider strengthening the existing powers?

Mr. Brown: Yes, Sir. I am aware of the difficulties, and I have under urgent consideration the most effective methods of dealing with them.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: Will my right hop. Friend say how long these inquiries will take, in view of the situation at the ports, and will he treat this problem as a plague and cease to surround it with mystery and laissez faire?

Mr. Brown: I am not talking about inquiries. I am talking about urgent consideration, which means, of course, that I am thinking about action.

Maternity Cases, London (Acommodation)

Dr. Summerskill: asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the inadequate accommodation for maternity

cases in London, he proposes to take any action in the matter?

Mr. E. Brown: The accommodation for London mothers includes in addition to the beds available in London those available at some 100 Emergency Maternity Homes which were established in the reception areas. The adequacy of the provision in London has recently been under discussion between officers of my Department and of the London County Council. Additional beds are being provided, but the number which can be brought into use depends primarily on the number of trained staff who can be made available. I have framed proposals with a view to ensuring that more of the women qualifying as midwives will undertake to practise as midwives, and after discussion with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service I am in consultation with representatives of employers and employed on this question.

Dr. Summerskill: Is the Minister aware that unless some action is taken in this matter the scarcity will be reflected in maternal mortality figures next year?

Mr. Brown: I am quite aware of the importance of the matter.

Mr. Messer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Midwives Board has issued a report in which it is stated that there is no shortage of midwives, but that the midwives are not doing the work?

Mr. Brown: As I indicated in my answer, that is the real problem. A number of trained and qualified women are not doing the work.

Hospital Staffs

Mr. Messer: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the serious position facing the hospital services in consequence of depletion of staff; and whether, in view of the danger of a breakdown of the services, he proposes to take any steps to deal with it?

Mr. E. Brown: I am aware that there is a shortage of staff at a number of hospitals, though my information does not suggest that there is any danger of a breakdown of the service. Both nursing and domestic work in hospitals is regarded as vital work for women of all ages, and I would refer, on this Question, to the replies given by my right hon. Friend the


Minister of Labour and National Service to my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) on 6th October, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Dud-deston (Mr. Simmonds) on 8th January. So far as trained nurses are concerned the total number of trained nurses available is insufficient to meet adequately the whole of the war-time demands upon them, but I believe that improvements can be secured by better distribution of those available, and after discussion with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service I have framed proposals with this object, in regard to which I am in consultation with representatives of employers and employed.

Mr. Messer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is not merely a question of nurses, but that the administrative staff has been cut to the bone, and that in one place which I could name there have been no fewer than six assistant masters within 12 months, and that now they cannot get anybody to replace one who has been called up?

Sir Joseph Lamb: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a large number of trained nurses are now being employed in Red Cross work in factories?

Dust Destructor, Hornsey

Mr. Messer: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the Hornsey Borough Council have decided to close down their dust destructor and place the disposal of refuse in the hands of a private contractor; and whether, in view of the fact that this will effect no economy but will impose an undue strain on transport, he will cause an inquiry to be made?

Mr. E. Brown: According to my information the Council's action is not yet decisive but experimental. I understand that it is anticipated that it will produce considerable economy in man-power on the working of the plant and the disposal of the product of incineration, and a negligible effect on transport.

Sir Percy Hurd: Does not my right hon. Friend think that the Hornsey Borough Council are best able to manage their own affairs?

Mr. Brown: That is so, but that is all the more reason why all concerned at the Ministry should watch the experiment.

Mr. Messer: Does not the Minister agree that the ratepayers have the right to this information?

Mr. R. C. Morrison: Will the Minister make the suggestion to the Hornsey Borough Council that they might consult with one of their neighbouring authorities who might be able to handle this work for them at less expense than is now involved?

Mr. Brown: I do not think it is necessary for me to do that. I think there are very friendly relations between the two boroughs.

German Refugee Dentists

Mr. Graham White: asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the increasing deficiency of adequate dental treatment, particularly among schoolchildren, and the presence in this country of some 60 German refugee dentists, whose loyalty is not in doubt and whose professional qualifications are not less than those of other German dentists already admitted to the permanent dental register and of other foreign dentists whose additional medical degrees have made possible their inclusion on the temporary medical register, he will see that a temporary dental register is set up?

Mr. E. Brown: As stated in the Reply to my hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities (Mr. Edmund Harvey) on 14th July, I am anxious that all possible use should be made of suitably qualified alien dentists who are in this country. A temporary dental register is, however, not necessary for that purpose. The statutory provisions which made a temporary register necessary for alien doctors do not apply to dentists. If any of the dentists to whom my hon. Friend refers possess foreign qualifications which have been approved for admission to the Foreign List of the Dentists Register, they are eligible for inclusion in that Register. My hon. Friend will appreciate that there are obvious objections to departing from the standard afforded by these registrable qualifications.

Mr. White: Is the Minister aware that since 14th July the situation has not improved, and that the Army Council have had to authorise the training of clerical dental orderlies and that the situation is very serious, and if there are such


obstacles as those to which he refers, will he not take some action to have them removed?

Mr. Brown: The issue is whether or not their qualifications are up to standard.

Sir Percy Harris: Is it not hard on British soldiers to be experimented on by untrained men or men who have been trained in a few weeks, and has not the right hon. Gentleman's Department some responsibility to help the Army in the matter?

Mr. Brown: That is not the point of the Question on the Paper.

Mr. John Dugdale: Is full use being made of doctors who are also dentists?

Dr. Russell Thomas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are many dentists on the British Register who have no qualifications at all?

General Nursing Council (Examinations)

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the General Nursing Council has arrogated to itself the power at discretion to refuse to admit to any of the council's examinations even candidates who have completed their studies, without being under any obligation to state their reason; and whether, in view of the adverse effects of this decision on the recruitment of nurses, he will intervene in this matter?

Mr. E. Brown: I am making inquiries as to the resolution to which my hon. Friend refers and will communicate with him further as soon as possible.

Mr. Davies: If the right hon. Gentleman finds that the statement in the Question is correct, will he see to it that the decision is reversed, because it is very hard to have this threat overhanging them all the time?

Mr. Brown: I will look at the resolution first.

Accredited Milk

Mr. David Adams: asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the fact that accredited milk is known to contain in many cases a variety of pathogenic organisms, and that the term "accredited" implies some special virtue, it is intended to re-designate this grade under a less misleading title?

Mr. E. Brown: The principal conditions relating to accredited milk are that it should satisfy a bacteriological test for keeping quality and cleanliness and that the animals of the herd shall be subjected to a periodical clinical veterinary examination. These conditions have been unaltered for several years and should be well known, and I do not propose any alteration, at the present time, in the designation.

Mr. Adams: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that every medical officer of health will refute his statement as to the cleanliness of this milk? Is it not time that we had only two grades of milk, clean and dirty?

Meat and Milk (Inspection)

Major Milner: asked the Minister of Health whether from the public health point of view, he is satisfied with the present arrangements for the inspection of meat and milk?

Mr. E. Brown: Steps are being taken by the Government, as set out in the recent Memorandum on milk policy, to improve: the keeping quality of milk and to increase the amount of milk pasteurised. Meat inspection has incurred certain difficulties from the circumstances of war-time control and concentration of slaughtering in fewer places, but I have no reason to doubt the general adequacy of inspection. I am glad to take this opportunity of expressing again my appreciation of the work that local authorities and their officers continue to do in food inspection generally, despite the other claims upon them.

Major Milner: Has the right hon. Gentleman had his attention drawn to the serious statements to the contrary made at a recent conference of the National Veterinary Medical Association, and what steps is he taking to refute those statements?

Mr. Brown: I have had my attention Drawn to them, and they are grossly exaggerated.

Medical Schools (Women Students)

Dr. Summerskill: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that many women students are finding it impossible to obtain a medical education in London; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?

Mr. E. Brown: Admission of students to university medical schools is now governed by a quota system based on the pre-war admissions and many more students apply than can be accommodated. As I promised my hon. Friend the Member for North Battersea (Mr. Douglas) on 4th June last, this question is under consideration by the Committee appointed by myself and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to inquire into the organisation of medical schools.

Dr. Summerskill: In view of the fact that the medical schools in London are constituent bodies of the university, is the right hon. Gentleman considering making strong representations to the university on the subject?

Mr. Brown: At the moment I have, as I say, with the Secretary of State for Scotland called a committee to consider this matter.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Is not the Committee appointed to consider not present but post-war policy?

Mr. Brown: It is to inquire into the organisation of medical schools, not necessarily after the war.

Mr. Maxton: Is it proposed to obtain a report which will be of immediate use?

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Shortage

Mr. Lipson: asked the Minister of Health what is the present estimate of the housing shortage?

Mr. E. Brown: I regret that I cannot indicate with precision the extent of the shortage at the present time. My hon. Friend will, however, appreciate that in any case it is not possible under existing conditions to provide new accommodation but I can assure him that a start will be made with what will clearly be a very big programme immediately the labour and materials can be made available for the purpose.

Mr. Lipson: Is it not the duty of my right hon. Friend to find out exactly under what conditions the people of this country are living now?

Mr. Brown: I have vast masses of information about that, but my hon. Friend

asked a specific Question, and to that I could not give an answer.

Mr. Lipson: In view of the fact that all the local authorities have this information, would it not be a simple matter for my right hon. Friend to obtain it?

Mr. Brown: It is not quite as simple as that. There are many considerations involved besides statistical facts about houses.

Earl Winterton: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that this matter may have very considerable bearing on the appalling increase in tuberculosis, in view of the overcrowding which goes on, and will he not at the earliest possible, date provide the figures for which he has been asked?

Mr. Brown: I am not sure that I can do so with precision, but I will give the House the fullest possible information at the earliest possible date.

Mr. G. Griffiths: Is the Minister giving any consideration to the question of the new entrants into the coalmining industry, as the mining villages are packed now, and if new entrants go there, what is to be done? It is time the Minister woke up.

Mr. Brown: There is no need to tell me that. We are very busy on this problem, but, as hon. Members know, building labour is employed on very great strategic matters. It is not only mining that is concerned. The agricultural industry has its needs, too.

Mr. Lipson: asked the Minister of Health whether he has given further consideration to the unsatisfactory housing conditions in certain areas where the population has increased since the war and no new houses have been built; and what action he proposes to take in the matter?

Mr. Brown: Yes, Sir, I am constantly reviewing problems of accommodation in consultation with the local authorities concerned, so as to ensure the best use of existing accommodation and such measure of amelioration as is possible under present conditions.

Mr. Lipson: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the wives and families of many of the men serving in the Forces are living in most deplorable conditions and that this must be having a very serious effect on morale?

Mr. Brown: There is not only that problem, but also the problem of Service men coming back from the Forces and young people who get married.

Sir I. Albery: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the number of blocks of flats and houses which have been almost completed?

War Workers (Billeting)

Mr. W. Brown: asked the Minister of Health whether he is satisfied that the billeting of war workers on householders is being fairly applied as between working-class householders and other householders; and, if not, whether he will cause instructions to be issued to billeting authorities to see that the burden of billeting is fairly distributed?

Mr. E. Brown: I am confident that, in general, the difficult task of finding lodgings for war workers has been carried out reasonably. The main consideration must be the comfort of the worker and I am glad to say that up to the present it has been possible in the vast majority of cases for arrangements to be made voluntarily. If the hon. Member has any particular instances in mind and will send me details, I will look into them at once.

Sir John Mellor: Would not billeting be less of a burden if the payments were adequate?

Mr. Granville: asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the serious overcrowding in the town engaged upon vital war production, of which he has been informed, resulting in families living and sleeping together in one room, night-shift workers unable to get rest and increased applications from key workers for release to other areas, he is satisfied that the chief billeting officer and the local authority concerned have adequate powers to deal with landlords who refuse war workers with families; and whether any right of vetoing tenants resides in the hands of the Mayor?

Mr. Brown: I am confident that the billeting and requisitioning powers which I have delegated to the local authority concerned, together with the powers vested in them under an Order made under Defence Regulation 68 (c), are adequate for securing for workers transferred into the area such accommodation as becomes available, and I know that lodgings for

large numbers of workers and accommodation for some 400 families have been arranged by the authority. Owing to the housing shortage due to the stoppage of house-building it is not possible in this or other towns to provide family accommodation for all who desire it, but I propose to confer with the local authority concerned and with neighbouring local authorities in order to see what further action can be taken to overcome the difficulties which exist. I shall also be glad to discuss the problem with my hon. Friend and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wycombe (Sir A. Knox), who has also raised it with me. With regard to the last part of the Question, the Mayor has no powers of the kind mentioned by virtue of his office, but I understand that he was until recently a member of the Committee which deals with applications by householders for the Committee's consent to provide lodging.

Mr. Granville: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that foundry and blast-furnace workers who, since the beginning of the war, have been engaged on heavy work for long hours and on night shifts, have been unable to get any rest during the day, and is he aware that his promise to take action will give satisfaction?

Junior Civil Servants (Lodgings, London)

Mr. Graham White: asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the difficulties experienced by junior civil servants, on returning to London from the provinces, in obtaining lodgings at a price which it is within their capacity to pay; and whether he will cause an inquiry to be made with a view to the removal of this difficulty?

Mr. E. Brown: I am aware that some difficulties have been experienced, but my officers, in conjunction with the local authorities and various voluntary agencies, are making every effort to find suitable accommodation at reasonable prices in hostels and lodgings for these officers. I understand that the officers who have already returned to London are now satisfactorily accommodated, and I anticipate that it will be possible to make suitable arrangements for those yet to come. I am glad to take this opportunity of expressing my appreciation of the valuable assistance which is being afforded in this matter by the Women's Voluntary Services and the authorities of various hostels.

Mr. White: May I appeal to my right hon. Friend to make a further inquiry without delay, because, having regard to the fact that many of these juniors are only paid 35s. to 40s. a week it is impossible to get respectable lodgings?

Mr. Brown: My information is that some 700 lodgings have been found at 15s. a week for furnished rooms.

Sir Percy Harris: Is it not a fact that there is a real famine in London for unfurnished rooms, and will my right hon. Friend concentrate his mind on making inquiries throughout London as to what is really happening?

Mr. Brown: It is happening in other places than London.

Mr. W. Brown: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the Government must in this situation do one of three things: either increase the very low wages of the girls; or increase the subsistence allowance they are given; or, thirdly——

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is now giving the answer to the Question he has put.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL AUTHORITIES (SALARIED OFFICERS)

Sir Waldron Smithers: asked the Minister of Health whether he will call for a return from all local authorities giving a list of the names of all their salaried officials, how many hold more than one appointment, details of each appointment so held, the salary and allowances received from each appointment, and the total received by each individual; and will he place a copy in the Library?

Mr. E. Brown: I should not be justified in asking local authorities to devote the time and labour required for the preparation of the suggested return.

Sir W. Smithers: In view of the fact that these figures are easily and readily available, does not the right hon. Gentleman think they would afford startling revelations not only to him but to the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Mr. Brown: I think the hon. Gentleman is optimistic. One authority alone would have to consider more than 25,000 cases.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES AND CIVILIANS (PENSIONS AND GRANTS)

Mr. Mainwaring: asked the Minister of Pensions how many men have been discharged from the Armed Forces, during the present war, on account of tuberculosis; how many of these were held to have contracted the disease prior to joining the Forces; and how many have been granted some amount of pension?

The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): It would not be in the public interest to give the figures asked for. But I am able to say that of the total number of men invalided out of the Armed Forces from the outbreak of war until the end of September last, 5.8 per cent. were discharged on account of tuberculosis, and of the claims made in respect of this disability rather more than 70 per cent. have been allowed.

Mr. Mainwaring: Is it not clear that the condition of any man suffering from this disease must of necessity be aggravated by entering the Forces and being deprived of the ordinary care and attention that he previously had?

Sir W. Womersley: No, it does not follow at all, if you take into account every circumstance of the man's service and everything that he gains in the way of medical advice, as the fact that over 70 per cent. have been accepted shows?

Mr. Mainwaring: Nearly 30 per cent. are rejected.

Mr. Montague: If a man has tuberculosis, ought not the Government to take the responsibility, whether the doctors find it out or not?

Sir W. Womersley: That is not a question for me at all.

Mr. Messer: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he proposes to take steps to deal with the position of the widows of Service men killed in this war who are compelled to seek assistance from public assistance committees owing to their pension being lower than public assistance committee scales?

Sir W. Womersley: A widow's pension is in the nature of a life annuity and cannot be compared with payments made by public assistance committees which are of a temporary nature, liable to fluctuate according to means and other circum-


stances and based on differing scales throughout the country.

Mr. Messer: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it a disgrace that a widow with three children should be compelled to seek public assistance because pension and allowances are not big enough to keep her?

Sir W. Womersley: I do not think it ought to be necessary. The pension and allowances should be sufficient.

Mr. Messer: If I submit a case to the right hon. Gentleman, will be consider it with a view to increasing the pension?

Sir W. Womersley: I will consider any case that the hon. Member, or any other hon. Member, sends me.

Mr. Lipson: asked the Minister of Pensions why a pension has been refused to the widow of Private Arthur Bryn Howell who died in hospital at the age of 42 on 20th September, seeing that Private Howell, who served for two years in the last war, was passed A1 when he volunteered in November, 1939; has he considered the effect of this refusal not only on the widow but on her two sons serving with the Forces; and will he grant a pension forthwith to Mrs. Howell?

Sir W. Womersley: Private Howell's death was due to cardio-vascular degeneration associated with stone in the right kidney. I am medically advised that neither the stone in the kidney nor the cardio-vascular degeneration was caused or aggravated by any condition of military service and I regret that I am therefore unable to award a pension to the widow.

Mr. Lipson: In view of the Service record of the family, if the Royal Warrant will not allow my right hon. Friend at present to grant a pension, is it not time it was so amended as to bring in cases of this sort?

Mr. Mander: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he will consider the advisability of arranging with regard to all increases in pay given to the Armed Forces, that half or some other reasonable proportion shall be disregarded by the War Service Grants Committee in considering the position of dependants?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions (Mr. Paling): It has

already been made clear that the recent increases in the pay of non-commissioned ranks are entirely disregarded for the purpose of war service grants, and, as my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal announced on 15th October, the method of dealing with the increased family allowances is under consideration.

Mr. Mander: How soon will a decision be arrived at?

Mr. Paling: I cannot say that.

Sir Herbert Williams: asked the Minister of Pensions on what basis compensation will be paid to the relatives of those who were killed and to those who were injured in the aeroplane crash at Ruislip?

Sir W. Womersley: Persons killed or injured in this unfortunate incident will be regarded as having suffered war injury, and claims will be considered by my Department under the appropriate Instruments.

Sir H. Williams: Does that decision apply to all accidents where Government aeroplanes kill civilians?

Mr. Speaker: That is a different question. This deals with one particular case.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA

Defence

Mr. Granville: asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the suggestion for the setting-up of an Allied War Council in India, inviting representatives of the United States of America, Russia and China to serve with those of Great Britain and India, in order to secure full strategic co-operation under the unified command of General Wavell of those powers concerned in the defence of India?

The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): No, Sir.

Mr. Granville: In view of the fact that every disaster in the war has been preceded by the failure of the Government to secure united strategy, is there any regular consultation with the United Nations?

Mr. Attlee: I do not accept the hon. Member's statement. There is full consultation.

Mr. Granville: Will the Government take advantage of the presence of Field Marshal Smuts to have an Allied War Conference in London to discuss the defence of India and other matters?

Mr. Attlee: The hon. Member has not observed that there was a meeting of the Pacific Council yesterday to deal with these matters.

Population Statistics

Mr. Thorne: asked the Secretary of State for India the total population of India in 1930 and the population shown by the 1941 census, excluding Burma; the cost of taking that census; the number of enumerators; and whether he can give the individual population of Bengal and the United Provinces?

The Secretary of State for India (Mr. Amery): The population of India (excluding Burma) as recorded in the Census of 1931 was 338,171,000. According to the Census of 1941 it was 388,800,000, of whom 60,314,000 resided in Bengal and 55,021,000 in the United Provinces. I have not been officially informed of the cost of the 1941 Census, but a Press report puts it as £375,000 and the number of enumerators at a million and a half.

Commander Locker Lampson: Is not this large increase in the population of India evidence of the success of British rule?

Mr. Thorne: The reason I do not put a Supplementary Question is that there are 137 Questions on the Order Paper.

Viceroy's Executive Council

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for India whether he will give an assurance that the reason for not completing the Indianisation of the Viceroy's Executive by appointing three Indians to the portfolios still held by Englishmen, is not because of any difficulty in finding suitable Indians for the position?

Mr. Amery: The Viceroy, in the expansion of his Executive Council in order to meet war conditions, has been concerned to secure both efficiency and continuity, and is satisfied that his existing Council consists of those best qualified at the present moment to fill their respective offices. There is no question of any

particular appointment being held on grounds of race or of the present European members being retained merely for the reason suggested by the hon. Member.

Mr. Mander: Will my right hon. Friend make clear the reason why this policy, which meets with such widespread support, has not been put into effect?

Mr. Amery: I gave the answer just now.

Mr. Molson: Is it not the case that the appointment of a Congress representative would be unacceptable to Congress and that a representative of any other community in India might very well cause resentment on the part of other communities?

Mr. Amery: I cannot say.

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for India whether it is the decision of His Majesty's Government that the Ministries now filled by non-Indians shall continue thus for the duration of the war; and whether he has considered recommendations to the contrary made by influential non-Congress Indians to the effect that Indians shall occupy all Ministries?

Mr. Amery: I presume the hon. Member is referring to the seats on the Governor-General's Executive Council, and I would refer him to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) on 15th October.

Mr. Sorensen: Is this matter being considered by the right hon. Gentleman and the War Cabinet, seeing that considerable pressure has been brought to bear from several quarters about this matter?

Mr. Amery: The answer I have given to the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton covers that point.

Sir A. Knox: Is not the agitation purely mischievous?

Mr. Granville: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen a statement in to-day's papers that Mr. Rajagopalachari intends to visit this country, and will he extend to him and other distinguished Indians an official invitation to discuss the formation of a National Government in India?

Congress Party Decisions

Sir William Davison: asked the Secretary of State for India whether he has any information to show how far the unanimous approval accorded by Congress to the decisions of Mr. Gandhi in connection with the recent constitutional offer was the result of free discussion and voting or whether it was arrived at by the exercise of pressure?

Mr. Amery: I have no information as to how the deliberations of the Congress Working Committee were conducted. It would appear from his subsequent action that Mr. Rajagopalachari must have dissented.

Sir W. Davison: Are not the decisions of Mr. Gandhi submitted to Congress in the form of resolutions for unanimous approval in the same way that the decisions of Hitler are submitted to the Reichstag for unanimous approval?

Congress Leaders (Interviews)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that the Hindu Mahasabha, having secured unanimity among non-Congress parties, had their request to interview Mr. Gandhi rejected by the Viceroy; whether he has considered the protest made by the Mahasabha; and whether he will take steps to enable non-Congress representatives to meet Congress leaders respecting the proposals of the former?

Mr. Amery: I have not yet heard that the Hindu Mahasabha claim to have secured the support of the Moslem League. I am aware that the Viceroy declined to allow Dr. Mookerjee to see Mr. Gandhi and I am not prepared in present circumstances to ask him to permit interviews with the Congress leaders.

Mr. Sorensen: Does that hold good for all time? Does not the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the urgent necessity of allowing facilities for the discussion of this matter?

Mr. Amery: No, Sir.

Mr. Sorensen: Is it not highly desirable, in view of the right hon. Gentleman's own wish to see this problem solved, that the parties shall be able to come into contact with the most important of all parties in India?

Mr. Amery: No, Sir; I have dealt with that matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHAINED GERMAN PRISONERS OF WAR

Mr. Stokes: asked the Prime Minister whether the decision to enchain German military prisoners of war was taken after consultation with his military advisers?

Mr. Attlee: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Stokes: Does my right hon. Friend recollect what happened in the last war with regard to reprisals on prisoners, and, if not, will he study what happened when it was suggested that prisoners should be put on hospital ships?

Mr. Maxton: Will the Minister say——

Mr. Speaker: An answer has been given on this point.

Mr. Maxton: I cannot remember that we got any answer; it only put the matter off.

Mr. Speaker: That shows that there was a definite answer.

Oral Answers to Questions — SERVICE PAY AND ALLOWANCES

Captain C. S. Taylor: asked the Lord President of the Council whether, as a result of the all-party deputation which he received recently, he has any statement to make on the question of Service pay and allowances and the many anomalies that still exist?

Captain McEwen (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. As the Lord President of the Council explained to the deputation, the Government must maintain their recent decision on the rates of Service pay and allowances, but they are willing to consider any anomalies which may exist. All the points which were raised by the deputation are under consideration, but as they were numerous and in some cases complex in character, a certain amount of time is needed for their examination.

Captain Taylor: Would the Government be prepared to make a brief statement of the points raised earlier in the Session if I put down a Question?

Captain McEwen: The hon. and gallant Gentleman had better put down a Question and see what happens.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE

Livestock (Post-war Europe)

Mr. Snadden: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the British Association was invited by His Majesty's Government to study the problem of the post-war restocking of Europe with farm animals?

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson): No, Sir, but I understand that the Allied Technical Advisory Committee on Agriculture have asked the British Association to advise them on certain scientific aspects of this matter.

Mr. Snadden: Is the British Association subsidised in any way by the Government?

Mr. Hudson: I am afraid I cannot say without notice.

Milking

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the national importance of an increased production of milk, he will make a pronouncement regarding his recommendations as to three-times milking?

Mr. Hudson: I do not consider that any appreciable extension of three-times milking is practicable under existing conditions.

Mr. De la Bère: Is my right hon. Friend aware that some additional effort will have to be made in order to make up the loss to small farmers which has been occasioned by the recent actions of the Ministry of Food? Is he aware that this is an important matter and is bound to affect production?

Mr. Hudson: That is not the Question on the Paper.

Mr. De la Bère: Why is my right hon. Friend trying to by-pass the matter? Is he not the trustee for the farmer and why does he not do his job?

Women's Land Army

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: asked the Minister of Agriculture for what reason it is still necessary to maintain a proviso that the Women's Land Army shall not be recruited from women already employed on the land for more than six months; and is he aware that it is discouraging farmers' and agricultural labourers' daughters from taking up agricultural pursuits?

Mr. Hudson: The object of the Women's Land Army is to provide an additional force of regular labour for the land. It is not desirable, in my view, that the State should incur the unnecessary cost of organising for agricultural work women who are already employed in agriculture and who will not be taken from it.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: Is my right hon. Friend aware that as a result of these restrictions women cannot go into the Land Army and continue to work on the land because they are taken away for other jobs?

Mr. Hudson: Women who are already employed in agriculture will not be taken away from the land.

Hill-breeding Cattle, England and Wales (Subsidy)

Mr. Donald Scott: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is now in a position to make a statement with regard to a subsidy for hill-breeding cattle in England and Wales on the lines of that at present in operation in Scotland?

Mr. Hudson: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave to him on 30th April last, to which I am afraid I have nothing to add.

Mr. Scott: Can my right hon. Friend state the reason for this delay? Is it due to the difficulty of deciding which breeds are to be eligible for the subsidy?

Mr. Hudson: Perhaps my hon. Friend will be good enough to look at the answer which I gave him in April, and he will see the answer to his Supplementary Question.

Requisitioned Land (Compensation)

Mr. W. Brown: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that farmers who are dispossessed of their farms by war agricultural executive committees can sell their land in the open market at prevailing prices, whereas farmers whose land is commandeered by Government Departments can be paid, under the 1939 Defence (Compensation) Act, only at the value as at the outbreak of war; and whether he will take steps to remedy this anomaly?

Mr. Hudson: I cannot perceive any anomaly from the terms of the Question as put by the hon. Member. An occupy-


ing owner of land who is dispossesed by a war agricultural executive committee can only sell the land subject to the committee's right of possession, and he or any purchaser can only claim compensation under Section 2 of the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939. An owner of land requisitioned by any other Government Department is in precisely the same position.

Mr. Brown: Is not the Minister aware that when a farmer is dispossessed of his land by a war agricultural committee he can let his land at current prices, whereas when land is requisitioned by a Government Department all that can be paid is rent appropriate to the level at the outbreak of war, and that between these two things there is often a wide gap? Will he not close that gap?

Mr. Hudson: I am afraid that my hon. Friend has got hold of the wrong end of the stick. If he will come and see me, I will try and explain to him what the situation is.

Mr. Stokes: Could not the gap be closed by a tax on site values?

Lime Subsidy

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will consider the possibility of prolonging the period for the grant of a 75 per cent. subsidy towards the cost of lime as many farmers who ordered lime as long ago as May were, through no fault of their own, unable to obtain delivery till after the expiration of the time limit?

Mr. Hudson: No, Sir. The increase in the lime subsidy from the normal 50 per cent. to 75 per cent. for summer deliveries was not intended primarily as a measure of additional assistance to farmers. Its object was to safeguard supplies by ensuring that lime producers had orders sufficient to enable them to keep their works in full production during a period when the agricultural demand for lime is usually at its lowest and thereby to retain labour which otherwise they would have had to lose. That object was fully achieved and the additional subsidy cannot be extended to deliveries after 31st August.

Sir A. Knox: Surely it is very hard on farmers who sent in their orders early? I have cases of two farmers who sent in

their orders several months before the expiry of the time and did not get delivery, and is it not hard lines that they should have to pay extra for their lime?

Mr. Hudson: I am afraid that in wartime we cannot avoid hard lines.

Oral Answers to Questions — CINEMAS (SUNDAY OPENING)

Mr. R. Morgan: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many Orders banning all cinemas on Sunday have been submitted to, and approved by, his Department; and in how many cases local authorities, having received a certificate from the competent authority under Defence Regulation 42B, have decided not to apply for leave to open cinemas on Sundays?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The closing of cinemas on Sundays, except in places where Sunday opening has been sanctioned by Orders submitted to Parliament, depends on Statute law and not on any authority given by the Home Office. As regards the second part of the Question, I should like to correct the information which I gave to my hon. Friend on 1st October. I only know of two or three cases in which a local council having received a certificate from the competent authority under Defence Regulation 42B has decided not to apply for power to open cinemas on Sunday. The number of Orders submitted to Parliament is over 230, not, as I previously stated, over 270.

Oral Answers to Questions — POLICE WIDOWS' PENSIONS

Miss Rathbone: asked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the fact that the Committee on Police Widows Pensions reported over a year ago, making unanimous recommendations as to the need for increases in scale and for changes in the regulations regarding certain specified groups, he will expedite decision on these matters and make his own decision if the police authorities and the representatives of the police themselves have failed to agree?

Mr. H. Morrison: As my hon. Friend is aware, the Committee expressed the view that the main cost of the improvements which they recommended should be met by increased contributions from


the police themselves. It is on this issue of principle that it has not proved possible to obtain the agreement of the Police Federation. I will inform my hon. Friend as soon as I am able to make any further statement.

Miss Rathbone: Does not my right hon. Friend think that it is intolerable that numerous police widows should be left in semi-destitution because the police authorities and the representatives of the police cannot agree about how much, if any contribution they will make towards the cost of the reforms which they have urgently pressed for, and is it not about time that the right hon. Gentleman took the responsibility of making his own decision?

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir. I think that if we are going to make people pay for a benefit, they are entitled to be consulted. I am not sure that I am entitled to impose my view. The block arises from the fact that the Police Federation will not agree so far that policemen should make any contribution, and until that block is removed I doubt if progress can be made.

Miss Rathbone: Are we not all being required to make payments and contributions of all kinds about which we are not being consulted, and why should this attitude be taken up in the case of the police widows?

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL DEFENCE

Nursing Homes (Air Raid Precautions)

Sir Frank Sanderson: asked the Home Secretary whether he will take steps to ensure that all nursing homes erect adequate air-raid shelters against bombing and take all other necessary precautions?

Mr. H. Morrison: For more than two years past local authorities in the more vulnerable areas have had authority to incur expenditure in providing air-raid shelter at nursing homes controlled by public authorities or private charities and catering primarily for persons whose financial position would make them eligible for free domestic shelter. The extent to which it is now possible to continue these facilities depends entirely on the availability in the locality concerned

of the requisite labour and materials. The provision of air-raid shelter in a private nursing home run for profit is a matter for the proprietor. In suitable cases, it is open to the proprietor to avail himself of a scheme instituted early in 1940 under which the professional Institutions of Architects, Engineers and Surveyors arranged for the services of consultants to be placed, for moderate fees, at the disposal of householders needing technical advice about shelter.

Sir F. Sanderson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are no legal means of enforcing the adoption of these essential precautions, and in view of the fact that a nursing home may have a large number of people left at night without a single male in attendance, will he consider taking such steps as may be necessary to enforce the adoption of precautions?

Mr. Morrison: I will consider that, but we are in a difficulty as to material and labour just now.

Sir F. Sanderson: asked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the serious danger from incendiary bombs, he will take steps to ensure that nursing homes adopt adequate methods for protection against fire?

Mr. Morrison: For fire-prevention purposes nursing homes are regarded as business premises and the occupier is bound to make adequate fire-prevention arrangements and to submit those arrangements to the local authority for approval.

War Workers (Exit Permits to Northern Ireland)

Dr. Little: asked the Home Secretary whether he will arrange that Northern Ireland war workers in Britain whose parents are dead, but who have sisters or brothers alive, will receive permits to enable them to visit these friends in Northern Ireland twice each year?

Mr. H. Morrison: Persons who have come to Great Britain from any part of Ireland since the outbreak of war for the purpose of engaging in temporary war work can obtain exit permits to enable them to visit their homes or friends in Ireland not more than twice during a period of 12 months, but this concession does not apply to persons who came here


before the war, and I regret that I cannot see my way to extend it to them?

Dr. Little: But if the parents are dead, can brothers and sisters visit one another?

Mr. Morrison: If they came here since the war they are able to visit their homes or friends in Ireland not more than twice during the 12 months, but that provision does not extend to those who came before the war.

Professor Savory: Did not the right hon. Gentleman say that it does not apply to brothers visiting sisters and sisters visiting brothers? Was not that the last answer he made on the point, and is it not a fact that many brothers have been refused permission to visit their sisters and sisters to visit their brothers?

Mr. Morrison: It may be so. There are certain restrictions on visits.

Professor Savory: Would it not be possible as a practical suggestion to reduce the period of six weeks which the right hon. Gentleman is now allowing before exacting the passport with photograph? Does he not think this is rather too long, and that with advantage that period of six weeks could be reduced?

Mr. Morrison: I think we had better watch how it works. In the meantime the scheme now in operation has been agreed with the Northern Ireland Government.

Northern Ireland and Eire (Border Defence)

Dr. Little: asked the Home Secretary whether, until the present murder campaign of the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland has been brought to an end, he will make it impossible for all persons suspected of disloyalty, and members of the Irish Republican Army, to cross the border from Eire into Northern Ireland?

Mr. H. Morrison: My hon. Friend's suggestion would, I fear, be as ineffective for the purposes he has in view as it is impracticable.

Dr. Little: I should like to ask my right hon. Friend whether this Government is responsible for guarding the border, and whether he will take steps to prevent armed men with murder in their hearts from crossing the border into Northern Ireland and, having carried through their

wicked designs, recrossing the border without let or hindrance and so escaping punishment?

Fire Prevention Duties

Mr. Brooke: asked the Home Secretary whether a part-time warden in London, fulfilling his regular duties in that capacity, who has not hitherto been called on to do fire-watching at his place of employment, can be compelled to fire-watch there; whether he is then automatically relieved of his responsibility to the warden's service, or whether there is any tribunal for determining if he is more needed as a fire-watcher in the one place or as a warden in the other?

Mr. H. Morrison: Persons who became Civil Defence wardens before 18th January, 1941, are exempt from compulsory fire prevention duties at the places where they work if they have continued and still continue to perform the duties of a warden for not less than 48 hours a month. Similarly, persons directed by the Ministry of Labour and National Service to become wardens under Defence Regulation 29BA are exempt. Persons other than head and senior fire guards, who have voluntarily become wardens since 18th January, 1941, are not exempt; but local authorities have, however, been instructed that when allotting duties to wardens and other civil defence workers account should be taken of any fire prevention duties which they are required to perform under the Fire Prevention Orders.

Mr. Hutchinson: asked the Home Secretary why the obligation to perform fire prevention duties, under the Civil Defence Duties (Compulsory Enrolment) Order, 1942, is restricted to British subjects; and whether he will consider extending this obligation, subject to suitable modifications, to foreign nationals resident in Great Britain?

Mr. Morrison: I am considering this question.

Dr. Summerskill: asked the Home Secretary whether women working with the Home Guard and undertaking duties hitherto performed by men will be exempt under the Fire Watching Order?

Mr. Morrison: The women in question are not members of the Home Guard, and in view of the shortage of Fire Guards, I should not feel justified in exempting them from fire prevention duties.

Dr. Summerskill: In the event of their becoming members of the Home Guard, will they then be exempt?

Mr. Morrison: I am not looking for further exemptions. I am looking for further Fire Guards and do not want to extend the channels of escape.

Commander Sir Archibald Southby: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War is considering the status of these women at the present time with the idea that they should become in some way members of the Home Guard?

Mr. Morrison: I am aware of everything that my right hon. Friend has said.

Mr. Mander: asked the Home Secretary whether he will consider the advisability of arranging that women engaged on part-time work in war industries at night, in addition to their regular daytime employment, shall be exempted from fire-watching on the same basis as women engaged in part-time Civil Defence duties?

Mr. Morrison: I have arranged for this matter to be considered at the next meeting of the National Advisory Council for Fire Prevention.

Air Raids (Regional Commissioners' Statements)

Mr. Reakes: asked the Home Secretary what steps he proposes to take to discourage Regional Commissioners from making statements prophesying heavy air-raids and so creating alarm and despondency among the civilian population, particularly in danger areas?

Mr. H. Morrison: It is right and proper that warnings should be given to the Civil Defence Services and the civil population to be in a state of readiness for heavy raids, and in my view it would be a reflection on the people of this country to suggest that such warnings would create alarm and despondency.

Mr. W. Brown: Can steps be taken to ensure that Ministers should speak with one voice on this subject?

Viscountess Astor: Is it not often the case that in devastated areas the authorities go fast asleep once a raid is over, and is it not necessary that they should be warned of what might happen?

Mr. Sorensen: In view of the statement made by a certain Commissioner and its apparent contradiction with that made by the Prime Minister, which interpretation of possible events can we accept?

Mr. Morrison: My hon. Friend will have seen that I spoke with the authority of the Prime Minister on Sunday, and there is a perfect reconciliation of any apparently superficial differences.

British Detainees, Isle of Man (Employment)

Mr. Edmund Harvey: asked the Home Secretary whether further consideration has been given to the possibility of permitting British subjects detained under Regulation 18B in the Isle of Man to undertake farm work, either on parole or under guard: and whether his attention has been called to the hardship involved to those without private means if no opportunity for earning money is granted them?

Mr. H. Morrison: Yes, Sir, every endeavour has been, and continues to be made to provide suitable employment, particularly farm work, for British subjects detained in the Isle of Man under Regulation 18B, but one of the difficulties is to find detainees who are able and willing to work on farms. A proposal to take over a farm in the vicinity of the camp is now under consideration. As regards the last part of the Question, I am informed that all the detainees who are prepared to work are now occupied.

Mr. Stokes: Have the rates of pay been adjusted? Last time the right hon. Gentleman told the House that these people were getting only 1s. a week.

Mr. Morrison: indicated dissent.

Mr. Stokes: It is of no importance whether the pay is 1s. a day or 1s. a week, because both are inadequate. As these detentions are of a preventive and not of a punitive character, does he think that is fair?

Mr. Morrison: I do not know what my hon. Friend means. He refers to 1s. a day and then to 1s. a week, and he does not seem to mind much which way it is. It must be remembered that these people are being maintained at the expense of the State. I think the hon. Gentleman wants to elevate these ladies and gentlemen rather too high in the social scale.

Mr. Stokes: I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Austrians (Registration)

Colonel Cazalet: asked the Home Secretary whether, in view of recent pronouncements by the Government, former Austrian citizens now in this country will be permitted to change the designation of their identity cards from German to Austrian if they wish to do so?

Mr. H. Morrison: I would refer to the answer I gave to the Question on this subject by my non. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) on 15th instant.

Colonel Cazalet: Although such a change may not alter the status of these individuals, would it not, from the psychological point of view, be a great relief and comfort to them?

Mr. Morrison: I am afraid that we should get into complications. It does not follow because a person comes from Austria that he is more loyal than if he comes from Germany. It would be most unwise to give this sentimental concession, which would only land us into difficulties before we were much older.

Mr. Astor: Will the Minister pay particular attention to the cases of Austrians who never accepted the Anschluss, and who refused to register with German Consulates for German passports?

Southern Irish Persons

General Sir George Jeffreys: asked the Home Secretary to what extent he exercises powers to expel or intern Southern Irishmen or women who, on an increasing scale, are proclaiming sentiments hostile to this country?

Mr. H. Morrison: Defence Regulation 18 (2B) empowers me to direct the return to Ireland, and to provide for the detention pending return, of any person not ordinarily resident in Great Britain at the date on which the Regulation came into force, who has so conducted himself as to render it expedient in the national interest that he should leave Great Britain. Under these powers 33 persons have been returned to Southern Ireland since 1st January, 1942. In addition the police have returned 198 persons for failure to comply with requirements imposed under

the Passenger Traffic Order when they were given leave to land in Great Britain. In a small proportion only of these cases was there evidence that the persons concerned had given expression to hostile sentiments.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Is the Minister satisfied that many of these people are not, in fact, exercising influence and doing things which would, in the case of other British subjects, render them liable to detention under 18B?

Mr. Morrison: I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that we do our best to keep observation and to take note of anything we hear. In any case where I have reasonable cause to act I send people back. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman has any cases that he would like me to look into, I shall be glad to investigate them.

Mr. Buchanan: Is not the Minister aware that many Southern Irish on farm work, particularly in Scotland, are rendering very valuable service to the community?

Mr. Morrison: I quite agree.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Growing Timber (Compensation)

Mr. W. Brown: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that under the Defence (Compensation) Act of 1939, no basis of compensation is laid down in respect of growing timber; and on what basis Government Departments pay compensation in respect of growing timber?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): As the answer is somewhat long, I am circulating it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

The practice of Departments in payment of compensation for growing timber is as follows:

Where land is requisitioned on which there is growing timber, the presence of that timber will normally be reflected in the rent payable under Section 2 (1, a) of the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939. If any of the timber is severed subsequent to the requisition, compensation would be paid when possession of the land is relinquished under Section 2 (1, b) of the Act, which provides for the payment of the cost of making good any damage to the land


which may have occurred during the period for which possession thereof is retained. Alternatively, Departments have, in suitable cases, negotiated an immediate settlement with the owner for the purchase of the timber as standing timber. Where growing timber has been severed under Defence Regulation 50, which provides for the doing of work on land, it has been the practice to deal with the matter under Section 3 (3, b) of the Act by payment of a lump sum as compensation.

Income Tax

Mrs. Cazalet Keir: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider enclosing a short explanatory letter with the first assessment of Income Tax to those liable for this tax for the first time, stating clearly the reasons for the deductions being assessed on previous earnings?

Sir K. Wood: The notice of assessment, with explanatory notes, which is sent to an employee from whose salary or wages tax is to be deducted, shows the amount of the assessment and the tax and gives information as to the period upon the earnings of which assessments are based. It also states over what period the tax is deductible. I am afraid I cannot see my way to introduce a further document.

Mrs. Keir: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that an inadequate understanding of the working of this Tax is causing a great deal of worry to a number of people who have very small incomes?

Sir K. Wood: I am hoping that the difficulty is now passing away.

War Damage (Payments and Receipts)

Captain Gammans: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is yet in a position to lay before Parliament the statement of payments made by the War Damage Commission; and the sums received by the Inland Revenue for the last financial year under Section 56 of the War Damage Act, 1941?

Sir K. Wood: No, Sir, but the figures are in course of preparation and, as provided in the Act, will be laid on or before 30th November next.

Oral Answers to Questions — QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. G. Griffiths: May I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker? On a Question

which I raised in the House yesterday, the Minister of Health said he would answer it in the OFFICIAL REPORT, but I want to raise the matter on the Adjournment. Can you tell me how I can manage that?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must take a suitable opportunity.

Mr. Griffiths: I am sorry, Sir, but I may not have the opportunity, because this is a Written Answer, although it is very unsatisfactory. Have I to put another Question down and then to tell the Minister I am going to raise the. matter, no matter what his answer may be?

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the hon. Member had better try it.

Oral Answers to Questions — MILITARY SERVICE (LOWER RECRUITMENT AGE)

Mr. Arthur Greenwood (by Private Notice): I beg to ask the Minister of Labour and National Service whether he has any statement to make with regard to the minimum age for the compulsory recruitment of men to the Forces.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): Yes, Sir. The lower age in the National Service Acts has always been 18, but in practice the minimum age of calling up was originally 20 and was subsequently reduced, first to 19 and last December to 18½. Recruitment has continued in the last 10 months on a large scale without calling up men under the age of 18½, but the stage has now been reached when, in the opinion of the Government, this further reduction in age can no longer be postponed and is indeed urgently necessary. I will not, I am sure, be expected to go into detail about recruitment for the Forces; but I may say that there are requirements for all the three Services that necessitate this step. His Majesty has to-day signed a further Proclamation as a result of which men who have reached the age of 18 up to this date will be made liable to be called up under the National Service Acts, and I propose to register on 7th November those who reached the age of 18 between 1st July and 30th September, both dates inclusive; they will be medically examined later in the month and called up to the Forces as required, and many of them may expect


to join in December. I will consider as usual what adjustments may be necessary in the national interest as regards apprentices and students. I should like to make it clear that the reduction in the age of calling up does not affect the minimum age, namely 19, at which men called up to the Army are posted for service abroad.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVILIAN MOTORING (REDUCED PETROL ALLOWANCES)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. BROOKE: —to ask the Minister of Fuel and Power whether, in view of the loss of shipping and of life involved in importing petrol, he will consider introducing further measures of economy in civilian motoring?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): With the permission of the House I will answer this Question. Yes, Sir. The increasing needs of the Armed Forces for present, and still more for future, operations make it necessary to effect economies in all other consumption. The Government have therefore decided that the civilian motorist must be called on for a further contribution to this effort. Further general reductions will be made in petrol allowances for business and professional purposes. These reductions will take effect in the issues made in November for the period December-January-February. With the hon. Member's permission, I will circulate a more detailed statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Brooke: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the manner in which these further cuts will be accepted by private motorists will depend largely on whether or not they see waste of petrol by commercial, or Service, or Civil Defence vehicles?

Earl Winterton: I wish to raise a point of Order on this matter. Is it not very unusual for a Minister to get up and say that he desires to answer, after Questions, a Question that has not been asked? Is not the usual practice for the Minister to ask the permission of the House to make a statement?

Mr. Speaker: The Minister did ask the permission of the House. The usual practice is that I ask the permission of the

House. I did not do so to-day, and I am sorry.

Mr. Maxton: Do I understand the Minister to say that this was only a cut for these three months, to be restored later on?

Mr. A. Bevan: Has not the time arrived, in the interests of economy of petrol, to restore the road signs up and down the country? Is it not a fact that many soldiers driving vehicles of all kinds go many more miles than they need to do, and are held up for many hours because they simply cannot find their way about? Would it not be much more sensible to put the signs back?

Mr. Lloyd: That would be a matter for my Noble Friend the Minister of War Transport. It could not possibly take the place of the measures which I have mentioned.

Mr. Price: Will any steps be taken, in view of the further restrictions on private motorists, to see that bus services are put in such a condition as to assist those who have to get in to do the essential shopping necessary in the countryside, which at present they cannot do?

Mr. Lloyd: The Minister of War Transport has undertaken to take into account these further restrictions in the arrangement of the bus services.

Mr. Astor: Will this be accompanied by careful investigation into the use of petrol by the Armed Forces, especially the use of higher powered cars than are necessary for transportation?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir, but it is a fact that the Fighting Services have made, and are continuing to make, drastic economies in all petrol consumption other than that necessary for operations and essential training.

Mr. Stokes: Will the Minister also inquire into the petrol allotted to Corps Diplomatique, who waste extravagant quantities?

Sir H. Williams: Will consideration be given to encouraging the use of motor cycles instead of motor cars by people to whom it is necessary that there should be an allocation of petrol?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir, the arrangements to which I have referred, and which are given in more detail in the statement which I propose to circulate, do in fact make arrangements to encourage in suitable cases the use of motor cycles.

Mr. Stephen: Cannot an economy be achieved by military personnel carrying something in some of the transport wagons that are going about?

Following is the statement:

The Government have decided to apply the following further measures of economy, beginning with the issues of petrol coupons made to the majority of motorists in November for use during December, January and February:

(1) In the case of motorists whose work is directly related to the war (to whom therefore "E" coupons are issued) there will be general reductions of the allowances granted for journeys made in the actual course of their work. The reduction will be 10 per cent. in the case of normal allowances, and more on the larger. These motorists are asked to meet the reductions by a more economical planning of their journeys, and by increased use of public transport.
(2) The allowances of motorists receiving "E" coupons for journeys between home and place of duty will also be reduced. They can no longer expect to make these journeys in their own cars on every working day, and will be expected to cover other days by sharing or other arrangements. Motor cyclists will be allowed a larger mileage than car-users, and car-users who enter into officially approved undertakings for the regular conveyance of other workers will be allowed a larger mileage than those who travel alone.
(3) The maximum allowances for the cars of applicants engaged in work not directly connected with the war, and therefore receiving "S" coupons, will be reduced by 25 per cent. The motor cycle allowances of this class will not be reduced.
(4) There will be special arrangements to discourage further the use of high-powered cars. In general, where other circumstances are equal, the allowance for a motor cycle will permit a larger mileage than for a car, and the mileage possible with a car will decrease as the horse-power increases. The rate of decrease will be very steep at the upper end of the horse-power range.
(5) Further reductions may shortly be necessary, especially in regard to motorists who receive "S" coupons.

(6) It is not intended to make any immediate general reduction of domestic allowances, but the sifting process already announced will be continued.
(7) Comparable reductions will be imposed on the consumption of Government Departments and local authorities.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Arthur Greenwood: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he has any statement to make about Business on our return?

The Lord Privy Seal (Sir Stafford Cripps): No, Sir, no statement is to be made about Business on our return. I shall have to ask the House to go into Secret Session, after the next Motion on the Order Paper has been dealt with, in order to announce dates.

PERSONAL EXPLANATION

Sir H. Williams: I wish to tender an apology to the First Lord of the Admiralty for an injustice which I unwittingly did him yesterday. When I was asking a Supplementary Question of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, I said something which implied that the First Lord had deliberately used his position in order to give an advantage to co-operative societies over private traders in the matter of milk distribution. I had no intention of implying anything of the kind, and I wish to put my apology on record.

NATIONAL EXPENDITURE

Sixteenth and Seventeenth Reports from the Select Committee brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed (No. 120 and No. 121).

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS

That they have agreed to—

Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 3) Bill.
Prolongation of Parliament Bill.
Welsh Courts Bill.
India and Burma (Temporary and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, and
Local Elections and Register of Electors (Temporary Provisions) Bill, without amendment.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That, notwithstanding the practice of the House, the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 3) Bill may be considered in Committee immediately after the Bill has been read a Second time."—[Sir S. Cripps.]

SECRET SESSION

Notice taken, that Strangers were present.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to Standing Order No. 89, put the Question, "That Strangers be ordered to withdraw."

Question agreed to.

Strangers withdrew accordingly.

The House subsequently resumed in Public Session.

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) (No. 3) BILL

Read a Second time; and committed to a Committee of the Whole House; immediately considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed.

DISPOSAL AND CUSTODY OF DOCUMENTS

Ordered,
That the Second Report of the Select Committee be now considered."—[Sir Percy Harris.]

Report considered accordingly.

Sir Percy Harris: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Report."
I owe the House an apology for moving this Motion on a day which is essentially a Private Members' day, but I feel that the recommendations of the Report are extremely urgent. My one regret is that my right hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means is prevented by indisposition from being here. He is rarely absent, and I am sure I am expressing the feeling of the House in saying that we hope to hear of his speedy recovery. He has put in on this question of the disposal and custody of documents an immense amount of time and labour. He has shaken up the dust of ages, and we owe it to him and to his personal interest and industry, that both the Report now before the House and the previous one have come to fruition. There is a vital difference between the Report to which I am asking the House to agree and the

previous one, which latter contained proposals to destroy documents, whereas this particular Report contains recommendations to preserve documents. If it is agreed to in its present form, it does not mean, as some of my hon. Friends are rather afraid, that no more papers will be handed over to salvage, but in the course of our explorations we found that in the Victoria Tower, which has always been a building allocated to the preservation of valuable documents, there was insufficient safeguard against fire. Much of the provision that is made is now unsatisfactory, and that is the reason why it is so important that this Report should be passed to-day. The matter is a little complicated, because these documents and these buildings are under the general control of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons as well as the Lord Great Chamberlain.
The danger of air raids is obvious to the House, and if by mischance the Victoria Tower was bit, we should, unless we had adequate arrangements against fire, be deprived of most valuable historic documents. The building was designed to be fireproof, but, to quote one example, it will be found from the Report that many hinges of the doors are rusty and require oiling and many of the windows of various rooms have been broken and only temporarily repaired, and it is urgent that these necessary safeguards should be provided without delay to make the building safe against fire. I would point out that official reference is made in the Appendix to the great importance of preserving a number of maps and plans which are now not merely of historic importance but are likely to be valuable when we come to re-plan and re-design many of our great towns and cities that have suffered from the blitz. An hon. Member behind me wanted to know whether the election petitions are likely to be pulped. This is an era when we do not often hear of election petitions. These, my Committee feel, are of real historic interest, and I think I can give him an undertaking that before they are handed over to salvage we shall come for authority again to this House.

Major Milner: I am sure we all associate ourselves with what the right hon. Baronet has said with regard to the regretted absence of the Chairman of the Committee. He has obviously as indeed has the whole Com-


mittee, done an excellent job of work in this Report. I imagine that the House will at once agree with the proposals made by the Committee, but there are one or two questions which ought to be addressed to them, or at any rate which they ought to consider at some future date if and when they are set up again. While the Report deals in considerable detail with precautions against fire, I have been unable to see that any consideration whatever has been given to the question of precautions against bombing. I do not know the position in this respect of the Victoria Tower or what protection it affords, but that would appear to be a matter which should be taken into serious consideration. It may be that some concrete and steel or other protection might be desirable, and although I do not know, certainly from the Second Report of the Committee, apparently that matter has not so far been taken into consideration, although there may be some answer to that proposition. I suggest that the Committee take into consideration the sprinkler system which is now adopted in so many factories, whereby, if there is excessive heat in any part of the building, water fountains and so forth are so arranged that they automatically spray water on the heated part of the building and thereby prevent what might otherwise be a serious conflagration. That is a matter which the Committee might also perhaps take into account and which they do not appear to have considered.
One observes—and this is really perhaps the most serious point I have to make—that the Committee draw the attention of the Fire Committee of the House to certain points. That Fire Committee, as hon. Members know, is really set up under the jurisdiction of the Lord Great Chamberlain and Mr. Speaker, who have authority over these buildings. Although many duties are added to that Committee, it has no spokesman in this House. It is not set up by the House, and hence questions cannot be addressed to it. I would suggest that consideration might be given by those responsible to having perhaps behind that Committee—I would myself prefer to set up another form of committee which I have had long in mind and which I am surprised was not set up too years ago in this House—something in the nature of a House Committee to which representations could be

made by Members and who would consider such representations, and, if thought desirable, make the wishes of the Members known to those in authority. It may be that such a committee can only be set up with the agreement of the Lord Great Chamberlain and Mr. Speaker, but its usefulness is so apparent that there would be no difficulty with regard to that. Such a committee would be a very valuable help, not only to Members, but to the authorities of the House. Perhaps between now and the re-assembly of Parliament such a proposal might be given consideration by those in authority, and unless the Lord Privy Seal would like to make further proposals to those already specified, I commend the recommendations of the Committee to the House and express agreement with the Report.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: I join with my hon. and gallant Friend and with the right hon. Baronet who has moved this Motion in expressing regret at the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Ways and Means, whose most interesting speech on the occasion of the First Report will be within the recollection of Members who were present on that occasion. We are all greatly indebted to him for the very great interest he has taken and the devoted labour he has given to this very important subject. The whole House will be in agreement that the Second Report proposes most valuable measures of conservation and that we owe a great deal to the Committee. I hope that we shall have an assurance from the Government that the appropriate Government office will at once take in hand the carrying-out of these recommendations, as soon as the House has agreed to the Motion. It is a case in which no day should be lost.
There is, however, one point referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) which I would like to deal with a little more fully. His assurance is most welcome, because it does convey clearly the intention of the Committee, but, unfortunately, the First Report of the Committee, which is referred to in this Report, leaves two important classes of documents—which can never be replaced—to be pulped at any time in the future if the Ministry of Supply considers it necessary to have the paper. During the Debate on


the First Report I put in a plea for these two classes of documents to be preserved, and I especially asked that the Public Records Office should be consulted before any final decision. The Chairman of Ways and Means relieved my mind very much by an assurance that the Committee did intend to consult that Office and had, in fact, already sent an invitation. I was quite sure from his expressions then that the Committee would keep in mind the recommendations that the experts of the Public Records Office made. We have in this Report a definite recommendation of the Keeper of Public Records, but, unfortunately, although the Report quotes his recommendation, it does not give any decision of the Committee on that recommendation. This recommendation would involve, in effect, a modification of the First Report and the reservation of these two classes of documents from pulping.
In the First Report, to which the Keeper of Public Records refers, the two classes of documents are specified; they are the transcripts and proceedings before Private Bill Committees from 1835 to 1903, of which no printed copies are available, and verbatim transcripts of proceedings in court on election petitions. These can be disposed of eventually if required by the Ministry of Supply, and, unfortunately, there is an ominous sentence that follows that portion of this recommendation on the part of the Committee. It states:
In both these cases the papers in question are the only existing records, but any reasons for preserving them are probably only based on their possible interest to historians.
That is an ominous sentence. A similar remark might have been made to the citizens of Alexandria when the great library of Alexandria was destroyed—that a large part of that library was only of value because of its possible interest to historians. These two classes of documents are unique, and the Keeper of Public Records has expressed in this Second Report his view that they ought to be preserved.

Mr. Speaker: I think the hon. Gentleman is dealing rather too much with the First Report which concerned documents that ought to be scrapped. This Report deals with the preservation of documents.

Mr. Harvey: That is true, Sir, but this Second Report quotes a note by the

Keeper of the Public Records Office in which he says:
I am very grateful to you for letting me see the First Report of your Select Committee containing proposals for the disposal of documents under three heads:

(1) documents for immediate disposal,
(2) modifications of the present practice of disposal, and
(3) documents for disposal in event of more urgent need.
He goes on to say:
We found nothing to criticise in the reasons given for these proposals, except perhaps in the case of the two classes of papers, named in Section 9 of the Report, which are among those only to be released for pulping if the need for waste paper should become more urgent. I was consulted in November last in connection with the 'verbatim transcripts of proceedings in Court on Election Petitions,' and expressed the opinion that, as the only record of the proceedings, they ought to be kept. The same consideration would seem to apply to 'transcripts of proceedings before Private Bill committees from 1835 to 1903,' of which no printed copies are available.

Mr. Speaker: I do not think discussion on the First Report would be in Order on this occasion. We have finished with the First Report.

Mr. Mathers: Is it not permissible for us when these matters are before us to make representations to those who have put this Report before us in order that further consideration may be given to such a question as this?

Mr. Speaker: That is going back to the First Report.

Mr. Mathers: But it is included in this one.

Mr. Speaker: The First Report has already been agreed to by the House, and it is no good going back on it now. We can only deal with questions raised in the Second Report.

Mr. Harvey: I would not for a moment wish to dispute your Ruling on this point, Mr. Speaker, so I will only add how grateful I am for my right hon. Friend's assurance and say how much I hope that if another Committee is appointed later to carry on the work of this Committee, it will, in the course of its deliberations, be able to include in a further Report a formal confirmation of that assurance.

Question, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Report," put, and agreed to.

REHABILITATION IN INDUSTRY

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. A. Young.]

Mr. R. J. Taylor: I am glad to avail myself of the opportunity, on behalf of my party, to introduce a discussion on the subject of rehabilitation. This discussion will, I believe, give my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary an opportunity of stating what has been, and is being, done on this very important question, and while I believe he will be able to say what progress has been made, I would want this Debate so to arouse the national conscience on this question that we shall be able to say to the Government that we want to be satisfied that adequate provision is made for the clinical treatment of our injured people and for the rehabilitation of every injured man or woman who is in need of it. I appreciate—and my party appreciates—the splendid example of the Minister of Labour and National Service and the statements which he has made. He has done an invaluable service to the working classes of this country in making and helping to make this subject a very live issue. In dealing with this question I will endeavour to avoid dealing solely with miners and to deal more particularly with the industrial side. I recognise that the subject of rehabilitation is one of the things which, of necessity, the war makes very urgent. The statement that we heard from the Minister of Labour and National Service to-day was another pointer to the need in the future for these services to be ready when they are wanted. But the statement also showed us the need for our being able to return to normality, if possible, the men in the Services who will be wounded.
Let me turn now to the industrial field. The other day some figures were issued by the road transport authorities, I believe, giving the numbers of deaths and accidents on the roads. That may not be an industrial matter, but the lives of those people are valuable to the nation. The figures were startling. I will give the House some other figures which I can quote approximately from memory. I will not give the number of fatal cases, because they are outside the scope of the subject I am raising, but between 1928 and 1938 accidents in mines and quarries numbered 1,600,000, and in all other industries 1,600,000, the

difference being only in the odd figures. Every day something like 1,000 people are injured in industry in this country. If one takes the seating capacity of the place in which we are now sitting as being 500, the figure I have given would mean that this place could be filled twice a day with the people who are injured in doing the nation's work. I do not say that all those people would be cases for rehabilitation, but the probability is that from 10 to 15 per cent. of them would be. The formidable numbers to which I have referred warrant my saying how justifiable it is that this question is being raised on the Adjournment.
In what I say I am speaking for all industries, but I have in mind particularly the mining industry. It is true that there has been progress in regard to accidents in the mining industry. It is not so very long ago—and my hon. Friends from mining districts will bear me out in this—when, if an accident happened in a mine, there was not the slightest provision for the easement of pain or the prevention of more serious consequences arising from what might be a very trivial accident. I remember the time when there were no first-aid appliances available, when no box was kept in the pit to which one could go for dressing and bandages, and when, if a limb was fractured in any way, a temporary setting had to be made by splitting timber, in order that the man might be brought to the surface. But, thank goodness, we are past those days. As far as concerns the liability for the actual treatment of compensation cases, however, there has not been that progress. The only thing that has been done has been the giving of compensation for loss of earnings, and that takes us a very little way. We have done our best to let our people know that they have been wrong in thinking they were paid compensation for the accident, We know all too well that they are not paid compensation for the accident. The compensation, which is very inadequate, is for the loss of earnings arising out of the accident. The payment of compensation will not meet the cost of rehabilitating the man himself. While it may not be opportune to do so, I want to make a digression here. I want to give the Government fair warning that if they think that it is safe to wait until after the Report of the Beveridge Committee before dealing with the larger question of compensation, they


had better take further thought, because on the question of compensation things are very uneasy.
Industry has continued to pay a premium to make insurance in respect of the payment of compensation. There is one thing, however, which industry has been unable to see. I shall not make the charge of callousness, for it may have been due to lack of knowledge, but whatever may have been the cause, industry has not been able to see what income could arise as a result of the quicker return of men to industry consequent upon shortening of the period during which they received compensation, and, more particularly—and this ought to be the concern of all of us—as a result of a man again becoming a fit economic unit in society. Industry has not been able to see how the budget could be balanced. Industry could measure the cost of fracture clinics and rehabilitation centres, but it could not see what income there would be to offset the expense of again making a man a fit economic unit as soon as possible. In the latest figures which I have been able to get concerning Workmen's Compensation there is an item as follows: "Cases brought from other years." The total number—not for the mining industry alone, but for industry generally—was 6,703. The amount of compensation paid was £3,710,527. That concerns disablement cases only. I have not as yet referred to industrial diseases, and if they were included, the figure would be much higher.
In the quotations which I shall make before I finish my speech, I hope to be able to show from the number of cases and the amount of money paid in compensation, and the experience in the treatment of these cases so far, that there could have been saved a very considerable amount of money which might well have been placed on the income side of the balance sheet, and that the treatment which we are now urging should be given to our people would, if considered from the point of view of self-interest alone, have paid employers and industry generally. On the men's side, we are going on year after year accepting the inexorable toll of the mines, that endless stream of injured men. Sympathy, yes, because there is no place where sympathy finds more ready expression than in min-

ing villages, but as to the after effects of accidents, we seem to have been ignorant, and it is regrettable. We were the people must affected, because we were the sufferers. It was not the shareholders of the colliery companies who suffered but the men who were doing the actual work, and they seem to have been in ignorance of the after consequences of these accidents. If after local medical or hospital treatment men did not return to normality, we have looked upon it very largely as inevitable. If industry has not been responsible for the rehabilitation of the workers, who has responsibility, because it must rest somewhere? I am pleased, of course, that the Minister of Labour is taking some responsibility, self-imposed to a great extent, because he has had to do with industry all his life, and so has his Parliamentary Secretary. We say it is the nation's responsibility.
The Lord Privy Seal and others have said pretty much the same thing that I am going to say, though in different language, that men are not employed in industry unless profits can be made out of them. By and large, every man engaged in industry produces more than he can consume, therefore there is a surplus, and every man and woman doing the work of the nation is adding to that surplus, which we call the national wealth, and it is on that national wealth that the Chancellor of the Exchequer bases his Budget. It is out of that national wealth that we derive subsistence for those who are unable to work, and it is out of that national wealth that we provide luxuries for some who can work and do not. Further, having tested it on those grounds, in the last analysis the workman is in the service of the State. He may get his wages from his employer, and before the Essential Work Order the employer has been able to give him the sack, but by and large he is in the service of the State. Therefore, if the people of the country in the past, in their wisdom—perhaps I should say in their darkness—have decreed that those who meet with accidents are only entitled to what is due to them in respect of their loss of earnings, it is the obligation of the State to make good the part that represents the loss in their service to the State. That is my claim to-day.
I am glad that a new light has come on this question of rehabilitation. There are some men who stand out as beacon lights


in their research, in their endeavour and in their self-sacrifice, in bringing to the industrial world and to the nation the possibilities of clinics. We have heard much of Mansfield. I remember some figures which were given by Dr. Nicoll when he came here. There is a doctor in my constituency who has some splendid work to his credit in this matter. It is limited, because the facilities are few, but he only needs the opportunity. I remember one figure of 400 cases that went to the rehabilitation centre. The cases that go there are not hand picked. The purpose is to restore men to normality if possible, and therefore only the worst cases are taken. Of those 400, 378 returned to the pre-accident employment, 21 went back to light work—light work in the pit; it would be heavy work elsewhere—and two did not recover. One died, and one was too seriously injured. If you take those figures against the background of 60,703 outstanding cases in 1938, it seems to me that there would have been a tremendous field for recovery and for the bringing back of these men to productive economic work.
I saw the fine old mansion in beautiful surroundings. The men were having games and doing exercises. That is the sort of thing I am pleading for. I want our men taken away from the hospital atmosphere altogether. I went to see a friend in a very fine infirmary in the North. I will not mention its name, in case anybody may think I am speaking disparingly about it, but I do not intend to do that, because it is doing splendid work under great disadvantages. When I went to see my friend, who had had a serious accident, I found that the place was full of injured men. I had not been talking long with my friend before he had told me about the cases all up the line, and it seemed as though each case was getting progressively worse. That has a psychological effect on the men and retards their recovery. I hope that we shall not have that atmosphere in the fracture clinics. Those who go to the fracture clinics do not necessarily go to a rehabilitation centre. While there are 1,000 new cases a year, 750 do not go to rehabilitation centres at all. I want the fracture clinics to be in surroundings which are not those of a hospital, because the man who goes to the rehabilitation centre sees a progressive stage of recovery. The atmosphere is one

of hope and cheerfulness, which implants itself on his mind and tends towards his recovery.
At Mansfield there are spinal cases. We are all used to broken arms and legs, but there is nothing which touches my heart so much as a case of a fractured spine. A man with a fractured arm or leg can get about sooner or later, but in the old days, in the case of a man with a fractured spine, we used to subscribe for a chair for him or he got it from the medical charity fund of our association. Then he was wheeled round the village for a few years until he died. If there is one thing I am glad of, it is that the treatment at Mansfield is helping spinal cases to such an extent that men are able to get back to their own work. It is a glorious thing, and no cost should stand in the way, for no cost can be measured against putting a man with a spinal fracture on his feet again and making him fit and able to look his fellow men in the eye and to earn his own living and be independent. I would like to add a word about the splendid service that is being done at Hoylake for one of the Services. If we can do that for the young men during the war, how much more necessary it is that we should be able to do it in peace-time for those who are doing the work of the nation. I think that we are passing from the reign of darkness where ignorance has held sway. The light is now breaking through, and on behalf of our party I hope we shall now enter into the reign of light and that the treatment of injured workmen shall be on the consciences of the people of this country so that nothing shall be left undone that will bring men back to normality and useful work.

Mr. Bernard Taylor: I welcome the opportunity of saying a few words on this subject, because I come from a division which can be regarded as the home and the hub of this great work of rehabilitation. During the past few months Ministers of the Crown, Parliamentary Secretaries and Members of Parliament have visited the centre at Mansfield and have paid tribute to the fine work that is being carried on there under the able guidance of Mr. Nicoll, the surgeon in charge. The work at the Mansfield centre is being carried on fairly extensively and with outstanding success. It is confined to the treatment of injured


miners, and it serves a population of at least 33,000 belonging to the mining community. I will give later a few statistics which I hope will indicate the value of the work that is being done there from a social, economic and humane point of view. I wish to address myself to the general question of rehabilitation, and I am glad to see the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour in his place, for he is interested in this work and his Department desires that it shall go forward. In order to carry on the work of rehabilitation with the maximum amount of success, the first essential is that there shall be the utmost co-operation between the fracture clinic and the rehabilitation unit. At the fracture clinic the foundation is laid for recovery, and at the rehabilitation centre the finishing process of healing becomes an. art which expresses itself in broken men being made fit, not only to walk but able to re-enter industry. It should not be overlooked that the work of the fracture clinic and the rehabilitation unit are interwoven. They cannot be divorced from each other if the work is to find its full expression and we are to get the maximum value from both the fracture clinic and the rehabilitation centre.
Another point is that the psychological aspect of this work is as important as the physical. It is necessary in this work of recovering broken men to fit them not only to enjoy life but to re-enter industry, and one of the first things to do is to remove from their minds the feeling of insecurity which was characteristic of past days. To achieve this, there should be the closest co-operation between the industry, the fracture clinics and the rehabilitation centres. Let me quote the case of two colliery companies with fairly extensive undertakings in Nottinghamshire to interpret practically the point which I am trying to make. They have appointed safety and welfare officers, and the scheme is working with remarkable success, both in the interests of the injured men and, may I add, in the interests of the industry itself. There is the closest co-operation between the safety and welfare officers appointed by these two colliery companies and the surgeon in charge at the rehabilitation centre, and when a patient has reached the stage of recovery at which, in the opinion of the surgeon in charge, he is capable of performing some kind of

work, communication is established with the safety and welfare officers; and the work is carried on even when a man, after recovery, re-enters the industry.
Let me say a word or two about the size of these rehabilitation centres, because there is a diversity of opinion on the point. I believe this work has come to stay and will be widely extended in the future, and I maintain that what we ought to avoid is the setting-up of mammoth, herculean centres. I am told, and the information is on the basis of experience, that the ideal is to provide accommodation for about 60 patients. That helps towards maintaining individual relationship and close personal contact between those in charge and the patients themselves. I hope that at these centres we shall not follow the practice adopted in our elementary education system, where we have big classes of 50 and 60. In such a class there is possibly a small minority of pupils who—for want of a better term—are mentally retarded and backward, and the problem facing the teacher is that if there is concentration upon the mentally retarded, the brighter pupils will suffer, because the pace of the class is set in the interest of the backward pupils. If there is concentration on the mentally retarded in a big class, the brighter children suffer. I hope that in connection with these rehabilitation centres we shall profit from that experience in education. If we avoid building mammoth centres, we shall retain what is most important, individual relationship and close co-operation between those in charge and the patients themselves.
Only a few weeks ago the British Orthopedic Association paid a visit to the Mansfield centre, and one of their speakers, commenting on the point I have made, said that a centre catering for 60 patients was the ideal to aim at. Another point is that these centres should be residential. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will give some thought to that point, because at Mansfield it has been proved that it works exceedingly well. The men get regular habits and have regular mealtimes, and so on, and that adds considerably to the progress patients can make. Let me give very briefly some account of the work done at Mansfield. At the fracture clinic, which is at the hospital, no fewer than 1,000 cases are treated each year, and that figure represents only the worst types of fracture. Of those 1,000 cases, between 15 and 20 per cent.—again the


worst type of cases—are selected for treatment at the rehabilitation centre. I do not want to repeat what the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor) has said, but I would like to point out that one-third of those cases are spinal fracture cases, that 50 per cent. of the cases treated at the rehabilitation centre return to their pre-accident employment, and that no less than 94 per cent. return to some kind of productive and economic work in the mining industry. In the light of those figures, I can only say that the days of miracles are not past.
My hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth gave some other figures upon which I do not wish to enlarge, but this he did not say, and I wish to refer to it because of its significance. In the area covered by this centre the Bolsover Colliery Company have large undertakings, and within a period of time that company had 400 consecutive fracture cases, and 389 of them returned to productive economic work and 378 of them returned to their pre-accident work. Those are very alarming, sensational and astounding figures. What about the 6 per cent.? I said that 94 per cent. of the cases treated went back to work. The 6 per cent. who do not recover and cannot go back to the arduous work in the mining industry are turned over to the Ministry of Labour. I pay a special tribute to the facilities that exist for training these unfortunate 6 per cent. The training centres should, however, be in the industrial districts where the accidents happened, because men do not like to leave home after having had their accidents and be buffeted about. They like to be able to stay at home. This aspect of our industrial life has been terribly neglected in the past. Men have been left to endure suffering and torture consequent upon serious accident, and their services have been lost to the community and to industry. Their own hopes have been frustrated, and they have lived for years in suffering and pain. The work now being done is sufficient evidence that no time should be lost, and no effort should be spared to provide facilities which will reduce the wastage of manpower, particularly in the mining industry, and will bring new hope to broken men.

Mr. David Adams: It is a felicitous circumstance that, in the midst of our greater preoccupations, we can spend time upon this new science, which

will be as a heritage to industry. This rehabilitation is relatively unknown, and the mining industry primarily has become interested in it; but it is equally applicable to all industry as well, as we have heard, as to the Armed Forces of the Crown. There has been very limited opportuniies up to now for making the knowledge that we now possess of our capacity to rehabilitate the injured more widely known, but the increasing mechanisation of production may make it more necessary throughout the whole field of industry for rehabilitation to take its natural part in restoration, where that is necessary.
From rehabilitation there is not only physical recovery, but great psychological changes in those who have been successfully treated. Mental and moral changes take place, we have been told. Whether this is due to the environment or to the treatment, or to both, I must admit that men who have been to Mansfield have come back with their entire outlook changed upon life and society and the problems of life. In that case, we have in this rehabilitation a new form of giving, to those who have been unfortunate enough to suffer in this way, a new and beneficial outlook. One of the men to whom I spoke had been a local preacher and described himself as a modern Naaman, suffering from the leprosy of invalidity due to an accident, and ne said, "I was washed in the stream of rehabilitation, and I have come out clean, whole and free from stain." I thought it was an admirable parallel and piece of imagery of what actually occurred.
It has been stated that compensation for earnings has been looked upon as the liability of those concerned, but to-day, after this knowledge has become general throughout the country and is accepted by the Ministry of Labour, a sufferer will be entitled to ask for rehabilitation in addition to any other obligation arising from loss of earnings. We were fortunate in being able to see in a Committee Room of this House the amazing results of Mansfield treatment. There was a film, and a lecture delivered by the great doctor who is at the head of Mansfield. Even more amazing was the information given to us that, unless there is absolute severance of the vertibrae, it is possible to-day to restore fully to health those who have been wheeled about in


bath chairs, as in the county of Durham, where accidents are very common.
So far, there is only one of these centres at Mansfield, for 50 or 60 patients, but when this treatment becomes the natural part of the treatment of accidents, and disease, maybe, due to industry, perhaps some of the old-standing cases may be taken. Men of my acquaintance and constituents of mine may be restored by the magic of this rehabilitation scheme. It is clear to us that the obligation of rehabilitation must be made statutory, either upon the employers concerned, or freely, fully and gladly accepted by the State.

Mr. George Griffiths: As I have sat here to-day my mind has gone back to yesterday, when there was a discussion about wages of the workers and whether they were not too high, and the benches across the way were full. There was no chance for any of us to speak. Now, when we are speaking about the rehabilitation of the workers after accident, the benches across the way are empty. I hope a note of this will be made by the Press, so that we shall know where we are. I am naturally interested in this rehabilitation scheme. I have heard my hon. Friends speaking with knowledge of the matter, and they spoke
as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
It was not something out of a book but something that they actually know and have seen and handled. I know something about the necessity for rehabilitation. My eldest brother 53 years ago sustained a fractured back in the mines. He is 69 years of age to-day, and he has never been enabled to go back to normal work from that day to this. Thank God, we can see on the horizon to-day the possibility of this kind of thing being wiped out. My hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor) spoke about having seen the picture in the Grand Committee Room. My hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. Adams) said he had also seen it. I like to see something better than a picture; I like to see the real thing. Along with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions, I visited Mansfield to see these men. We spent five or six hours there and talked to the men. We saw the men undergoing training—gymnastics, etc., outside and in-

side. The psychology both of the instructor and of the men struck both of us. Why? Because we could see in the very eyes of these men, who had had fractured backs, fractured legs, etc., hope, inspiration. They said to us, "We have a chance now to get back to the work we were doing before we had our accident."
If one goes into any mining village today, one can see men who have had fractured legs, fractured arms. Some of them are bow-legged, some of them are knock-kneed; they are twisted all shapes. The reason is that no attention was given to them when the accident occurred. The attitude in the past when a man has been hurt has been to say, "What are his wages; what is his average wage for the last six months? Did he average £3 a week?" If he did not, he did not receive 30s. a week compensation. I have seen some of our chaps, married men with five or six children, go home with 21s. 6d. per week, and all the owners cared was that the man from the mutual indemnity company, when the injured man had been off work for a few weeks, would come round and want to know, "Is it not about time you were shifting and getting back to work?" If it was a serious accident, a bag of silver would be dangled before the injured man's eyes, and it would be put to him, "Take a lump sum settlement. You can manage a fish shop in a back street." That has been the attitude. We want it wiped out entirely. The way to do it is to make the insurance national State insurance instead of profits for the insurance company, so that if any profit accrues at all, it shall accrue to the man and to his wife and children.
I know the Parliamentary Secretary is waiting to get up, but my soul is full of this thing. My home has been hit by it; I was hit by it myself for 26 weeks when I was in the mines. I know something about it as a married man, because I had only 23s. for my wife, three children and myself. I wish to give another little example of experience. I cite a case about a lad who has had his leg off, a young fellow at Edlington. For over 12 months he has been like that, and nobody seems to think it is his business to see that he is rehabilitated. If somebody had been quick about it, this lad could have been back at work, the same work as he was doing, because without a doubt great


strides have been made to-day, strides at Mansfield, but not only at Mansfield. There have been great strides here at Roehampton. I like the idea of that light leg, the aluminium leg, instead of a cork leg or wooden leg, whereby the wearers can move about and practically get back to their own work.
I went to the Mansion House a week last Wednesday, and I saw miracles walk across the platform there, not a picture on the screen, but actual human beings who had been mangled in the blitz of this war. A little girl 11 years of age who had been blitzed and had had her leg off came on that platform and skipped across it just like a little bird. One could not perceive that she had had a leg off at all. I thought that was wonderful. Another young lady who was there who had had her leg off is doing her work and travelling 26 miles daily on her bicycle. I do not want to enlarge on this. I want to say that if these things can be done for our own people who are blitzed by the enemy, it must be done for our own people who are in industry and producing the wealth of the country. It could be done. I believe the Minister himself and the Minister of Pensions also are whole-hearted so far as this is concerned.
The other day I went to Newquay, where they are beginning the rehabilitation of the men there while they are on their backs. I saw a lady instructress who had charge of about a dozen men. They were men who had been injured, men who were casualties in the war. There they were on their backs. Almost immediately they came into the hospital this lady was beginning their treatment, telling them how to move their feet, how to move their necks, how to move their backs, etc. When she had done with them they went to another trainer, a man. What is required in these rehabilitation centres is not only a man who knows how to manipulate the limbs, but a psychologist. I saw at Newquay one of the finest men instructors, who could read a man inside as well as read his accident. This man had the confidence of the people who were under him. There are great possibilities, there is great hope, and I believe that, not when we come out of the war, but now, for the casualties in the war, in the blitz, and in industry, we should do all we possibly can to bring these people back so far into industry.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): I am glad to have the opportunity to-day of replying to the discussion on this important subject, and I am glad to be able to agree in the main with almost everything that has been said. Rehabilitation is a big subject, and is interesting from more than one point of view. Hon. Members have dealt with it to-day primarily from the industrial point of view, and it is from that side that we of the Ministry of Labour are most concerned with it. But there is a tendency to think sometimes that it is only concerned with one aspect of disability, that which arises from accidents in industry. One can understand that, because people who have been most connected with industries in which accidents have arisen have seen the effects of these accidents more clearly than any others. But all diseases which lead to disability—and they are many—must be brought under review if the picture is to be complete. So must the numerous accidents unconnected with industry. It may be a surprise to many, as it certainly was to me, to find that the majority of accidents were not connected with industry, apart from the war casualties, both among civilians and in the Services.
The object of rehabilitation, as has been very adequately said, is to restore the individual as far as possible to normal. Successful rehabilitation is not solely a medical problem. I hesitate to use definitions which might be misinterpreted, but I would say that in the strictly medical sense rehabilitation means the process of restoring lost muscle tone, restoring the full functions of the limbs, and maintaining the general health and strength. All those things are included in the term, used in its medical sense. This should begin as soon as possible after the injury or the operation, as soon as the patient's condition permits; and it should be a continuous process. When restoration, in the medical sense, has been achieved, the social and industrial experts are required. In consultation with the medical experts, they should determine whether the patient can return to his former occupation, and if not, what other kind of occupation would ensure his making the greatest contribution in the field of productive effort.
It may be true that we are appreciating the value of our man-power, in an economic sense, more clearly than we


have done before, and that the progress made in rehabilitation is due to the enhanced value of man-power when it becomes scarce. The fact remains that not only from the standpoint of restoring the injured person to productive effort, in the interests of the community, but in his own interests, rehabilitation is essential. That which the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor) spoke of as the feeling of independence which comes to the individual who finds himself able after a serious accident or illness to earn his own living, is more important, I believe, even than his value to the community from a productive point of view. After restoration in a medical sense come training and resettlement. Both need careful consideration. The point made by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. B. Taylor) with regard to that training being conducted, wherever possible, near the individual's home, is one which we have already discovered to be of importance. These principles, broadly speaking, are accepted by all. What steps have been taken to implement the desire of all sections of the House that they should be put into operation? With regard to the medical side of rehabilitation, much progress has been made, although much still remains to be done. In the Emergency Hospitals Scheme organised by the Ministry of Health and the Department of Health for Scotland, many orthopædic centres have been established, with a full range of facilities, including massage, physical training, occupational therapy, and workshops, as well as orthopædic surgery. Other hospitals have been earmarked for fracture cases; and some, if not all, of these facilities are available there. So there is at least a skeleton service available.
I ought also to mention the work of the Ministry of Pensions and that wonderful work, to which tribute has been paid, which has been going on at Roehampton. The people responsible for the development of that work have been pioneers in a cause which we all realise is vital. My visit to Roehampton some months ago and my talk with the surgeon in charge had such an effect upon me that whenever I have seen since then a man with a peg-leg I have felt a cold shudder down my back. We shall not have completed our task until everybody who has lost a limb has the advantage of what science has

produced in the limb-fitting centres. It was because of the scarcity of man-power, among other things, and the need for bringing back into industry the people who were lost to the productive economic life of the community, that the Minister of Labour introduced the interim scheme in October, 1941, for the training and resettlement of disabled persons. The experience gained in the short-time—barely 12 months—which has since elapsed is indicative of the work that we believe can be done through this scheme, and it may be that a greater scheme will emerge out of it. The first thing about this scheme that I would like to emphasise—one which has been spoken of by, I think, all speakers to-day—is the manner in which we get in touch with the people who have suffered injury or who are disabled as a result of long illness. That is done, in the first instance, by interviews, which take place in the hospital.
Somebody said that the individual at the rehabilitation centre should be a psychologist, but it is just as essential that the psychologist should be at work before he reaches the rehabilitation centre. One of the striking things about this scheme which we have been putting into operation during the last 12 months has been the effect upon the individual concerned when, on being interviewed in hospital, there has been the prospect of returning to work of some kind. Therefore the psychological effect of bringing to the individual the possibility of training and restoration is something which cannot be over-emphasised. It has been said that "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." That may be true outside hospital service, but I have been in many a hospital in which hope seemed to have departed from all the breasts that were present. Therefore it is essential that the two things should be welded together right at the beginning. In the interviews which have taken place what has been impressed upon the individual concerned was not only that there was hope but that we were looking for him to be restored in order that he might return to industry and health.
The scheme in its original stage was confined to the training of people for the war effort. The training could be carried out if the individual, after training, could be placed in industry which would be helpful in the war. After the scheme had


been running for some six months it was found that there are scarcely any industries to-day which are not wrapped up in the war effort and the scheme has now been extended to cover all types of industry. Up to the end of August the total number of people interviewed under the scheme was just over 41,000. The great majority of these were hospital interviews and related to war service or war injury cases, but included among the total a proportion of interviews at exchanges of persons with pre-war disablement. It is obvious that a great many disabled people in the country to-day have left the hospital a long time ago and given up hope, may be, but they have been brought back to the possibility not only of being usefully employed and earning their own living, but of once again taking up the thread of life and a place in society as a consequence of this new scheme. Of this total, about 29,000 have been placed or have found employment, but I would not like to say at this stage that they have all been placed in positions in which their injuries have been taken into consideration.
One of the difficulties about rehabilitation in war-time is that man-power is at a premium and economic circumstances are such that the individual can obtain a job, whether he is fit or not, and the consequence is that he will perhaps take on a job which is not suitable to him because of the economic conditions. It may be that at the end of the war when circumstances have changed the necessity for the re-training of these men will make itself felt because of the fact that they have only been trained for a war occupation. The fact that they have been brought along the road and have been brought from a state of disability back into the labour market and been employed is a long step in the direction of restoring them into full man-hood and full economic work. The total number of persons admitted for training under the scheme is just under 3,000, and when you subtract 3,000 from 29,000, it means that 26,000 have either gone back to their own jobs or been able to obtain jobs in industry similar to those which they were doing or which are most in demand today. Originally the training provided under the scheme, as I have said, was limited to war industry or war effort occupations, but it has now been extended.
There is rather a striking figure with respect to the blind, who are in a special category of disabled people. It is strange to find, after all that has taken place with regard to the care of the blind and their rehabilitation and training, that out of 600 persons who have been interviewed, 200 have been placed in employment of a kind other than that which was regarded previously as being the exclusive employment of the blind. To-day there are many blind persons whose sense of touch has been so developed, perhaps as a result of their blindness who, after training, have been able to take inspection jobs requiring great delicacy of touch, and they are doing jobs in our engineering shops not only with credit to themselves but with great advantage to the people for whom they are working.
There is ample evidence from the individuals we have seen and the work that has been and is being done in different places that this scheme is successful and that it can be made more successful as the days pass. It has been possible to take over two centres at least which previously were subject only to voluntary contributions, and in which very badly disabled people are being treated or trained at the moment. I refer to the centres at Exeter and Leatherhead. Here training is given, and the object and purpose of the training, even in these centres where only the very badly disabled are being trained, is to restore them to a position in which they can obtain full work at full rates of pay. There is no desire either on the part of the Ministry of Labour or of any of the other Minis-tries in conjunction with whom we are working on this business to make these people into something other than the best type of workers. We feel that we owe it to these men who are injured either in industry or in connection with the war effort or even as the result of accident at least to bring them back into the scheme of things exactly on the same footing as those with whom and for whom they are working.
The second development in this scheme is the development of grants to undertakings which are employing the most severely disabled who have little or no chance of getting ordinary employment. That scheme has only just come into operation but it is intended to assist at any rate in bringing back to employment


those who otherwise at this stage would not be capable of employment.
I would like to say a word or two, in conclusion, about one or two of the things which the introduction of this scheme and a study of the whole subject of rehabilitation have brought to our attention.

ROYAL ASSENT

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went; and, having returned—

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Appropriation (No. 3) Act, 1942.
2. Greenwich Hospital Act, 1942.
3. Courts (Emergency Powers) Amendment Act, 1942.
4. Prolongation of Parliament Act, 1942.
5. Local Elections and Register of Electors (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1942.
6. India and Burma (Temporary and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1942.
7. Welsh Courts Act, 1942.
8. London Midland and Scottish Railway Order Confirmation Act, 1942.

Question again proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."

Mr. Tomlinson: When we were called to the other place, I was about to conclude my remarks. I want to put before the House one or two of the things that we have discovered as a consequence of our working of the interim scheme. The first is this. While we can claim great things for rehabilitation, I hope we shall not over-claim. It may be that a little story of a boy who was injured will illustrate what I mean. The boy had his fingers badly hurt in a mill and was taken to hospital. After a period, the doctor, looking at him, said, "Well, I think you will be all right, Johnny." The boy said, "You think I will? Do you think I shall be able to use my fingers ail right?" The doctor said, "Certainly, my boy." "Will I be able to play the piano with

them?" "Oh, yes." "Well," the boy said, "that is funny—I couldn't before." That is where the interim scheme of the Ministry of Labour comes in, so that if an injured person cannot do that which he did before, he can at least be given a training which will enable him to undertake something useful.
The second thing I want to say is this. I want to emphasise that the possibilities of rehabilitation ought not to prevent us from using all the brains and ingenuity we have to devise machinery and working conditions which will render accidents and diseases arising from industry less and less frequent. We know that in wartime accidents tend to increase, not only because of the increasing number of people who come into industry, but because very often they come in without that background which others who have always been in industry possess. Although these accidents tend to increase, and although we may be able to improve matters afterwards by rehabilitation, let all who have any influence in industry, either in connection with the design of machinery or new inventions, do all we can to lower the accident rate in industrial occupations and prevent the necessity for rehabilitation, while taking steps to make rehabilitation a reality.

WAR PRODUCTION (SCOTLAND)

Mr. Boothby: I desire to raise the general question of war production in Scotland: This question is bound up with the compulsory transfer of Scottish mobile labour, particularly of Scottish girls, to work in English factories, which has now been going on for some time. I ask hon. Members to believe that there is very great indignation on this subject throughout the length and breadth of Scotland, and that this is not doing any good to the general war effort. There have, of course, been many cases of individual hardship. With these I do not propose to deal on the Floor of the House. There have also been cases where arrangements for the reception and accommodation in England of these girls from Scotland have been far from satisfactory; but I do not propose to deal with that point either. I accept the assurances of the Minister of Labour that things are all right now; and I intend to take advantage of his very kind invitation to visit one of the main


receiving centres in England for the Scottish girls, and to see for myself the provision that is made for them.
It is with the principles that I want to deal for a few minutes, because the transfer of these girls from Scotland to England is a symptom and not the cause of the trouble. There is a background to this story. Ever since the last war Scotland has been more or less depressed. Between 1920 and 1940 her basic industries, agriculture, coalmining, fishing, shipbuilding, and engineering, languished. She never recovered after the depression of 1929. Scotland remained a distressed area, and was so categorised by the Government of the day. I submit to the House that, by comparison with England, Scotland received very bad treatment at the hands of the Government before this war. Her housing conditions were allowed to remain a blot on our so-called civilisation, much worse than those of England. Her principal cereal crop remained for years unsubsidised, as against wheat. Her natural resources, particularly of water power, remained undeveloped. Her railway system was administered from London.
Last, but not least, there was a steady drift of industry from Scotland to the South, and particularly of the lighter industries. I would remind the House that Nobel's great chemical industry started in Glasgow. It has now been merged in Imperial Chemical Industries with headquarters in England. Even some of the heavy industries, like Stewart and Lloyd, which began in Glasgow, were transferred to England; and, of course, what applied to the heavy industries applied far more to the lighter and more prosperous industries which, in fact, never really started up in Scotland during the years before this war. London was the magnet. London remains the magnet.
But in 1935, with the inauguration of the rearmament policy, came the great opportunity to reverse this process. It was not taken; and I want to say to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland—and I challenge him to deny it—that practically without exception, when the 1935 rearmament programme was inaugurated, every single shadow factory projected was located in England and not in Scotland. One can hardly name a single factory that was scheduled to be located in Scotland. It is almost

unbelievable. Once again Scotland was left out in the cold. In a Debate in the House on 10th March, 1937, I referred to the unhealthy growth of London, to the danger of concentrating our industries too much in the South of this country, and to the necessity of doing something to stop the steady drift of industry from Scotland to the South. I said:
I have often felt that if we in Scotland were only a Dominion, which perhaps we shall be one day, or a Crown Colony, our resources would have been developed many years ago."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1937; col. 1259, Vol. 321.]
I believe that to be true. I believe that, if Scotland had been a Crown Colony, there would have been an uproar every time there was a Colonial Debate in the House until something was done. As it was, we were just allowed to drift along, in distress. Nothing was done. In fact, worse followed. The Secretary of State well remembers the fate of the Caledonian Power Bill, which was twice rejected by English. Members in the teeth of a majority of Scottish Members. If that Bill had been passed, we could have been producing all the vital carbide that we require to-day. May I quote one sentence of a speech that I made on the Caledonian Power Bill?
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs during the last war coined the phrase, 'Too late.' That phrase is alarmingly true in this country at present and is terribly applicable to the present situation. If we had had this Bill two years ago we should be able a year hence to manufacture all the carbide that we want in this country and we should nave taken one constructive step, the only one we have had during recent years, to revive the Highlands and bring assistance to them. If we pass this Bill to-night we may still perhaps be in time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th April, 1938; col. 447, Vol. 334.]
We did not pass the Bill that night. The English Members decided that it would be better to make our carbide in Norway than in Scotland.

Mr. G. Griffiths: It was not only the English Members. The Scottish Members were split to pieces.

Mr. Boothby: We had a substantial majority of Scottish Members on both occasions. I only say that English and Welsh Members decided that we should make our carbide in Norway. I often wonder what they think about that today, because we are not getting a great quantity from Norway.

Mr. Buchanan: I think my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Mr. G. Griffiths) is mistaken. The hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Mr. Boothby) referred to the Caledonian Power Bill, not the Grampian Power Bill.

Mr. Boothby: That is correct. The war then came, and still Scotland did not get her fair share of Government work. Why has Scotland not got her fair share since the war broke but? Is it because the Scottish workers have lost their skill? I do not think so. Is there a river in the whole world that has produced more and better ships during the last three years than the Clyde? I doubt it. Are the engineers of Scotland, famed for the last hundred years for their skill, no longer masters of their craft? That cannot be substantiated. Yet the number of new factories for war production is out of all proportion lower in Scotland than in England, and that has gone on steadily for the last three years. The North, the centre and the East of Scotland are still comparatively neglected; and, last but not least, contracts are not being placed in sufficient numbers with the firms that already exist. The Ministry of Aircraft Production is the most culpable of the Government Departments in this respect. So we get the pitiable spectacle of the best Scottish girls being drafted South because Scotland has not got her fair share of war production, and that is why I say that the cause of the problem is not the drafting of the girls as such. That is only a symptom of the neglect that Scotland has had before and since the war broke out.
I want some assurance that Scotland will get a better deal in the future and that, as and when these new factories come into existence and these contracts which we hope will be placed in Scotland are placed, the girls who have been compulsorily drafted to England will be given an opportunity, should they desire to return to their native land. The Minister of Labour said the other day that he was bound to treat Great Britain as a whole, and that he was not going to make any distinction between Scotland, Wales, the North, and the South of England. I agree that there is a case to be made out for what he said, but there is another side to the question. There is such a thing as national patriotism, Scottish patriotism,

which I do not think is at all inconsistent with the war effort as a whole. I do not think it should be discouraged. I do not think that Scottish girls who want to work in Scotland should not be encouraged to do so. The sort of remark made by the Minister, if carried to its logical conclusion, would lead to a demand for some form of Home Rule for Scotland, which might prove irresistible.

Mr. Buchanan: I implore the Secretary of State to see, on the score of domestic happiness, that where father and daughter are living together the home should not be smashed up by the compulsory movement of the girl. A man working at munitions, perhaps from eight in the morning to nine or 10 at night, needs food, and, if you take away the only person who could look after him, you will make him a much less efficient worker and inflict domestic unhappiness without getting much in return. There ought also to be a better approach to the girls when they are interviewed. They should not be told in a brutal fashion, "take it or leave it. We have the law, and God help you if you do not obey it." That is a bit annoying coming from young women of about 25 interviewing others of perhaps 35 years of age. I admit that the Minister of Labour has not been altogether unreasonable when approached on the matter but I ask him to look at it again.
I think that Scotland at the moment is capable of greater development in the matter of industry. One of the arguments—and it is a reasonable one—is that we cannot in the middle of a war go in for great building because of the scarcity of material and men. I am certain, however, that there are a fair number of buildings available and that they are not being properly used. I mentioned the other day a building which is in the Tradeston Division, which was formerly an engineering works and was afterwards making sugar. It is used to-day as an office for the Assistance Board. My father used to work in it, and for at least 50 years it was carried on as a first-class engineering works. It might now be better used if machinery was put into it than as an office of the Assistance Board.
I would ask the Secretary of State again to survey the possibility of building space in Scotland and also of buildings which have machinery in them and which are


not now, owing to the exigencies of the situation, making the goods that were normally made. Machines in such buildings could be taken out and other machines put in. I speak of this matter purely from a business point of view. I do not want to go into the war between Scotland and England and Wales. I once said in the Scottish Grand Committee that I would sooner have a good Englishman in the chair than a bad Scotsman. On these matters we are all like Jock Tamson's bairns, a very mixed lot. I do not want to raise any racial feeling. Speaking of this problem as a business proposition, I think it is better to move industry than a lot of human beings and so break up families. I would ask the Secretary of State to use his power and try to see whether he can swing the matter back in order to stop this great movement South. In Scotland there is some feeling on this matter. At a trade union conference on Saturday it was said that the politicians were agitating too much. If we had said nothing, we would have been accused of neglecting our duties, but when we say something we are told we are making an agitation. I am a strong, active trade unionist and hold some position in the movement, but I do not think trade unionism ought to be superior to the House of Commons, and I am not going to have offensive lectures made to me. This assembly is the greatest, possibly, in the world, and I am not going to have it substituted by other people. I am not going to have my duties as representative of Gorbals delegated to other people who have not been elected.
There is feeling in Scotland on this matter, but I do not exaggerate it or emphasise it. Some of the girls want to come to England and are happy when they get there. If they are to come, however, they should be given hostels. Private lodgings for a girl are rarely a success. A man lodger is a different thing. As soon as he has done his work he can go out to the pictures or have the fun of the fair. A girl, however, wants to stay in and wash her stockings or her hair, and she is a bit of a nuisance to the family she is staying with. As a result, she is not so happy in private lodgings as a man is. For the first two or three weeks her lodgings are good, but that does not last long. My mother used to keep lodgers, and I always said that there was never a good lodger or

a good landlady. There is always war between them. For these girls, therefore, hostels should be provided. I am certain that there are buildings in Scotland which could be used for a movement of industry there. There is also available skilled labour, I will not say unused or untapped, but not fully used. If the Government applied their minds to it, I am sure that Scotland could be placed on a better footing with regard to industry than if has been before. None of us want to see a repetition of the terrible conditions that prevailed in parts of the country before the war, and for anything that the Secretary of State can do as a result of this Debate to help improve the situation in Scotland he will earn the gratitude of the people.

Major Lloyd: While I agree with and endorse the sentiments of my hon. Friends from Scotland who have spoken in this discussion, I want to raise another aspect of the matter with a special desire to tackle my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour in connection with a decision which has hitherto been acted upon but which I hope will be amended as a result of this Debate, that is, the decision that mobile women in Scotland must be earmarked exclusively for export for employment to England. I am not among those who hold any form of extreme nationalistic sentiment on this matter. The Emergency Powers Act to which we agreed unanimously on one day in May, 1940, gave the Government power to tell everybody what they ought to do and, indeed, what they must do. I have deplored ever since then the fact that the Government, and most of all the Minister of Labour, have never completely implemented that Act. It has been one of my greatest regrets that that Act has never been put into full force. At the same time, while I fully agree that Scottish girl workers must be prepared in the interests of Great Britain to be sent if necessary to English factories to help on the war effort, I consider that the situation at present revealed in Scotland shows conclusively that Scottish war factories of vital priority importance ought to be able to tap the pool of mobile Workers and that that pool should not be used exclusively for export of women workers to England.
The present Regulations mean that Scottish war industries of the greatest priority of importance are unable to utilise


that pool of mobile workers except in the most exceptional instances, which might be quoted and which are of the most abnormal character. I consider that is all wrong. From time to time when this matter has been raised in the House my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has rightly suggested that if there were not sufficiently vital employment for them in the war industries in Scotland, these girls must go to England where there was vital war employment for them. I am not one of those who disputed that contention.
I assumed at first, perhaps too readily, that when the Minister of Labour said that, he meant that there was not employment for them in Scotland and that therefore they had to come to England, but latterly I have been making inquiries as to how far that contention was sound, and I am satisfied that there is and has been for many weeks, perhaps even for many months, an insistent, strong demand from most vital war industries in Scotland that they should be allowed to utilise, and to utilise to the best possible advantage of our war effort, a large proportion of those mobile workers whom they have not been allowed to employ because they have been told by my right hon. Friend's officials in Scotland, especially in the Glasgow area, that those girls are taboo, that they have to go to England and therefore cannot be employed in Scotland, however vitally important the employment there may be. I submit that that is an indefensible attitude for my right hon. Friend to adopt.
One does not want to make invidious distinctions, but we know very well that being of the younger type, the healthier type, they are the cream of our girl workers. I do not mean to suggest that our immobile workers are not of the most efficient type, because they are, but obviously the mobile workers, being younger, with fewer domestic ties, more adaptable and quicker to learn a new job, are the cream of our girl workers. Why should only immobile women be available for our Scottish war factories? Why should the factories not be allowed to tap this vitally important pool of mobile workers? I do not want to be misunderstood. I am in no way opposed to those mobile workers who cannot be usefully employed in vital war work in

Scotland going to England. I have no false or nationalistic sentiments on the matter. We all must do as we are told and they must; but from the point of view of common sense, from the point of view of justice, from the point of view of travel, from almost every point of view one can imagine, it is absolutely wrong that Scottish war factories should not be entitled to tap this pool of mobile workers. I have the most abundant evidence from vital war factories that that is not the case. In order to justify what I have said it is necessary that I should quote a few extracts from a letter from one of the most important war factories in Scotland, with a priority as high as that of any factory in any other part of Great Britain. I suspect that my right hon. Friend is fully aware of the firm to whom I am referring. These few extracts will amply confirm the statements I have made:
We are a very large employer of female labour, having at the present time a very large number of women on our books. Our production programme has been increasing steadily and has not yet reached its ultimate figure. For our further expansion we are looking almost exclusively for female labour, and at the present moment we could absorb several hundreds. We have been greatly disappointed at the number of women who have been actually forthcoming. Our problem became particularly acute when the Orders were issued making this district an exporting area, thereby precluding us or any other people like us from engaging mobile women in Scotland. Naturally we find that young girls in the mobile class make the best operatives, being healthy, intelligent and, generally speaking, without the domestic ties of the older women. The section of our factory which has been for some time in the greatest need of expansion in personnel, where they particularly require girls of this class because of the nature of the work, is very seriously handicapped.
I would particularly ask the attention of Members to this point:
Not only, however, have we been debarred from employing mobile workers but non-mobile girls have not been forthcoming in anything like the right quantity, or have to come from such a long distance that they are tired with their goings and comings.
I may interrupt that letter to say that I have have evidence that there are quite a number of girls who are away from home for 14 hours in the day, taking into account their working time and their time going to and from work. That is a scandalous position of affairs. This particular factory finds it so difficult to get immobile workers that they have to seek them far away, and the girls are 14 hours away


from home on account of having to travel long distances. If this factory could dip into the pool of workers in the locality this scandalous state of affairs would never exist. The letter goes on:
Throughout this year we have been fighting the issue in all quarters without any success at all. Within the last month, however, the problem has become so serious that we have made personal representations in important directions and we hope that the situation will improve. We have even gone so far as to say, which is true, that if we do not get assistance from mobile workers we cannot fulfil our commitments to the Ministry of Production.
That is a very serious statement from a vitally important factory.

Mr. Stokes: Will the hon. and gallant Member tell us how much of this 14 hours is spent in travelling?

Major Lloyd: Quite a lot. The pool of immobile workers is so small that the firms have to spread their net far afield to collect workers and go a very great distance indeed. I do not and dare not go further than that. When I say that it is 14 hours between home and home and that they put in an ordinary day's work, my hon. Friend can imagine roughly how far some of them have to travel. The letter goes on:
As a result of this, during the last week or two there has been a considerable improvement.
This letter was written a week or two after some hon. Members and myself from Scotland had taken this matter up very strongly in the House of Commons by Question and answer. It is curious that this situation, which was so very deplorable, began to mend, as so often happens, the moment Members of Parliament took an active interest in the matter. I have had a further letter from my correspondents in which they say that the position has greatly improved. I give that point free, gratis and for nothing to my hon. Friend who may reply to this point for the Ministry of Labour. The position is better, but the fact remains that it is imperative that Scottish war industries of vital priority importance should be entitled to a priority claim on the cream of our Scottish girl workers, the mobile workers who are at present ear-marked for export to England.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: The hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) deserves the thanks of Scotland for raising this matter to-day. I agree with almost every word he spoke; my

only comment is that his case was not entirely complete. It is true that Scotland, particularly before the war, was neglected by those in Government places, but that is not the whole story. A good deal of the trouble arose because our own people, for some extraordinary reason, lacked initiative and the enterprise to start new industries themselves. I am ashamed to recollect the spate of begging appeals to London at that time.

Mr. Kirkwood: The employers.

Mr. Stewart: Yes, I mean that. I remember the case of the Forth Bridge road, when there was a pathetic series of appeals. I say frankly that I am not proud of my country in its mendicant mood. We do not shine as beggars and too often that was the case during the depression. The situation is of course different in the middle of war. Initiative is cramped, and it is not possible for firms to set themselves up to create great enterprises without Government authority. They are dependent upon the action of the Government.
I see the Secretary of State for Scotland and a representative of the Ministry of Labour on the Front Bench, but the man who ought to be sitting there is the Minister of Production, who is primarily responsible for the trouble of which we are complaining. In principle we cannot, in the midst of a war of this kind, object that our girls, any more than our men, are drafted from one part of the country to another, and we do not object in principle, but we object to the circumstances which cause that drafting to become necessary. Why are these girls sent in such large numbers to England? Because the opportunities of production in Scotland are not properly exploited. Less than a year ago I raised this point in one of our larger Debates upon production, and I said at that time, upon the very highest authority in Scotland, that in the region near Edinburgh, bounded by Stirling, Falkirk and thereabouts, there were no fewer than 20,000 immobile women workers who were not working for the war and who might be put to employment. Since then, nine months or more have passed and it may well be that some of those women are working. But I see that the Minister nods his head. I am pretty certain that a good half of them are still unemployed.
I agree that we might have secured more large factories in Scotland before the war but, on the other hand, I recognise that in some parts of the country and in a great city on the East of Scotland development has taken place. But I contend that the Government and the Minister of Production have failed, and are still failing, to recognise and to exploit the existing capacity that ought to be used. I put a Question to the Minister of Production yesterday, and I got a rather unsatisfactory reply. I asked him
what steps he is taking to survey the capacity of the large number of industrial units throughout the country, not classified as engineering works but which could undertake some form of munition work; whether he is aware that many such units are now doing work of national importance in addition to their normal activities, with the result that local labour is employed and not sent away to other parts of the country; and whether his plans recently announced are designed to make full use of all such undertakings?
The reply I received stated:
The assessment of capacity in their regions is one of the principal duties of the regional boards. Their primary task must, of course, be to make full use of the capacity in the engineering industry; but they are always seeking to arrange for munitions production wherever it can be undertaken without impairing other essential production or wasting labour or other resources."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st October; col. 1982, Vol. 383.]
I asked that Question for a particular reason. Last week the chief official of the Ministry of Production addressed a great gathering of engineers in London, and I was invited to be there. I asked him, in the course of the discussion afterwards, which was in public, what steps he was taking to survey and use the capacity of non-engineering units such as I had in mind. I will give the House an example of them. A paper mill is, I understand, not technically an engineering unit, yet in my constituency there are paper mills doing for the Ministry of Supply work which has nothing to do with the making of paper. Some parts of their mills are being used to make fuses for shells. I asked the Ministry Chief if he and his regional boards were surveying all the possibility of using these non-engineering units, and his answer was "No." He had never thought of it. Hon. Members have heard the answer to the Question I put to the Minister of Production yesterday. I fancy that the explanation is that, theoretically, the

regional boards have had this duty imposed upon them but in practice do not perform it. I declare from my knowledge of the facts in Scotland that there is a possibility of work in a large number of non-engineering work-places for the production of any amount of munitions and for the employment of hundreds, and it may be of thousands, of women who are not now doing war work. I ask the Minister to tell me what is being done about this matter.
My last Question I address to the Secretary of State for Scotland. He recently formed a Council of Industry, which was a development of the old Scottish Development Council, with which I had something to do, as the right hon. Gentleman will be aware. We were led to believe that the new Council would do a great deal more than the old had done. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what the new Council is doing? I have not yet heard of anything that it has done, and I should like to know whether the Council have faced the problem of the Scottish girls who are moved to England Does the Council concern itself with the opportunities for work in East Scotland, or raise with the Minister of Production the problem of those non-engineering units? Is it performing that kind of function? In other words, I seek here publicly an assurance that Scotland's claims are presented in the right quarter, in the right way, and with the highest, possible authority.

Mr. Gallacher: I listened with some attention and some interest to the speech made by the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby). I am sure that other Scottish Members will welcome him into the fold. I was struck by an argument of his which was supported by the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart), and which is true, and that is that the employers of Scotland were responsible for the present situation and for industry going out of Scotland.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I said "partly."

Mr. Gallacher: Nobody is more concerned about this problem than the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot). He is very keenly interested in it and is very anxious to do a good job. It should be mentioned that Scottish Members have discussed this


matter, and sent a deputation which has interviewed various Ministers and has received a certain amount of satisfaction from them—not from the Secretary of State for Scotland. The hearts of the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove, the hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd) and the hon. Members for East Fife (Mr. H. Stewart) and East Aberdeen are sore that Scotland has been denuded of industry. Their own Tory pals have denuded it because they went from Scotland to big combinations in England. They were after profit. Now the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove, who told the denizens of the slums that profit was a great motive for helping you on in life, has seen his country denuded by his own Tory party. That is one thing which he and his colleagues will have to face. I would like also to remark on the fact that the Minister of Labour yesterday set a very good example by introducing Marxism into this House. If hon. Members understood Marxism, they would see that if these girls are taken away it will not give strength to the campaign for self-government in Scotland. If they are taken away as they are being taken away, there will be no Scotland left for self-government. If we can get our own girls back and our own industries going, there will be a basis for self-government in Scotland, which will have to come sooner or later. [Interruption.] That is Marxism.

Major Lloyd: Is it not possible that the British people, and especially the Scottish people, have understood Marxism so well that the hon. Member is the sole representative of it in this House?

Mr. Gallacher: The unfortunate thing is that the people of this country do not understand Marxism so well. If they did, the hon. Member and his colleagues would not be having such a happy time in this country as they have been having. They are beginning to get an understanding of Marxism. That is an awful outlook for Members on the other side. This deputation has had some interesting discussions with the Minister of Labour, the Minister of Supply, the Minister of Aircraft Production and so on, and there is no question that within the limitations imposed on them by present circumstances they are trying to open out new avenues, other activities, in Scotland. But they have got to break through their limitations.

The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has made a valuable suggestion that in the present circumstances there is always the possibility of lifting the machinery from one of the big industries in industrial areas here and taking it to Scotland. If there is a big attack on some industrial centres, such as Coventry, everyone will get into a rush to do something of that kind when it is too late. Now is the time to make movements of that kind. We should try to learn the lessons which are being demonstrated in other parts of the world—look at the Soviet Union—but we should not wait until this is forced on us. There is the opportunity to do it now and to help the country as a whole.
What is the Secretary of Scotland doing in this matter? I know he has been in Scotland talking about new industries. He has been very encouraging, so far as his hearers are concerned, but I never hear of any fierceness down here in the Government, of the Minister going in and making threats of any kind to other Ministers. Is he afraid of the Minister of Labour, or of the Minister of Supply, or the Minister of Aircraft Production? The Secretary of State for Scotland, with his doughty lieutenant, should call a meeting of Scottish Members during this Recess to discuss the important problems that should be dealt with in relation to Scotland when the King's Speech is before us. Why should we not have such a meeting called to discuss this question, which has become a serious problem for Scotland and for the country as a whole?
Many Members have dealt with the question of mobile and immobile labour. The Scottish Members' deputation when discussing this are all clear on the fact that it is impossible to run an industry efficiently with only immobile labour. If the meanings of "mobile" and "immobile" are considered, it will be realised how impossible it is to run a factory on immobile labour. By immobile labour is meant women with domestic responsibilities who must give a certain amount of time to work at home. By mobile women is meant young, active, energetic women who have no domestic responsibilities and no need to give service to the home. If all those who are best fitted for production are taken away, and all those who are least fitted for production are kept to fill the factories, it is impossible to run


industry that way. This differentiation is a mistake, and a change must be made. The Secretary of State for Scotland has had the very strong support of the Scottish Members. I do not know when a Secretary of State for. Scotland—and I include his doughty lieutenant—has had more support from the Scottish Members, and they will back him to the utmost limit if he will take this matter up. I hope he will do it.

Lieutenant-Colonel Elliot: The hon. Member who has just spoken, I can assure the House, takes a very much more forthcoming attitude on deputations when he is approaching a Minister in his innermost sanctum than he adopts on the Floor of the House. Between ourselves, I prefer his attitude on those occasions to his attitude on this. It seems to me that the danger we suffer from in Scotland is this desire to quarrel with one another. It is not at all true to say that either one side or the other is responsible for the depression in Scottish industry to-day. I could give many examples. I will give one which is present to the minds of many of us. When a great new industry was offered to Scotland, Scotland was begged to take it—that of carbide and ferroalloys—it was the subject of the most bitter discussions on the Floor of the House from one Scottish Member to another, and was turned down, not at all by the unanimous vote of one side or the other but by a vote in which many Members of the other side of the House took part. Let us remember that when one side or the other seeks to cast away all the blame for the condition in which our country is at present,

Mrs. Hardie: That is a rather distorted version regarding the carbide and ferroalloy industry. There was a principle involved of handing over great Scottish assets to private enterprise.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: That surely is what is being said, that because of concentration on abstract principle the House, or many Members, refused to allow the development of an industry which would have been of the greatest value to Scotland and of the greatest benefit, I believe, to the country as a whole. As the hon. Lady will know, support for that came from that side of the House as well as

from this side. It is wrong to say that the whole blame should fall on one side or the other. If we go back and dig up all the quarrels of the past, we shall never get industry going again in Scotland. We are now faced with very important problems, and we should tackle them, rather than saying that the whole blame for what has happened in the past is due to such-and-such a set of idle and self-seeking individuals.

Mr. Boothby: My right hon. and gallant Friend will surely admit that in the case of the Scottish hydro-electric scheme a considerable majority of Scottish Members on both sides voted for it.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Yes, but the point is that an important opposition to it was developed not on party lines, but on lines of abstract principle. The point was made by the hon. Lady, and all of us will agree. Time and again in Scotland we have thrown away the substance for the shadow; we have lost opportunities because we would not come to an agreement on how the thing should be done. We have had experience of that in Scottish housing. I would not have raised this subject had it not been specifically raised—and indeed posted to my address—by the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher). For love of our country, let us abandon these past quarrels, and concentrate on immediate problems, which are quite important and pressing enough. Take this question of hydro-electric power. The Secretary of State, all credit to him, set up a Committee, which will, no doubt, report at an early date. Let us see that we get something from that Committee, rather than digging up old quarrels and seeing whether we can find stones in that debris to throw at each other. It is said that it is impossible during the war to expect great enterprises requiring building to be set going in Scotland. I do not take that view.
It may well be that in a long war, in which great engineering schemes are produced, one of those great engineering works will be constructed in our country. There has been a miracle of engineering development in the last few months. A great army of men has come from across the Atlantic, and has been accommodated in this country, in spite of the shortage of materials and labour, which one would have said a priori would have made such


a development impossible. It must have been expected that those who are stressing the demand for a relief offensive to assist Russia would boggle at the thought of anything which would delay the continued construction of the great bombers by which alone that offensive is being pursued. I can sympathise with the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Aircraft Production when they say that all mobile labour must be kept on the plant and tools which are capable of turning out a continuous flow of these great instruments for which the people of this country, inside and outside this House, are so insistent, to relieve the strain upon our great Ally, who is so hardly pressed. But we are passing, as we have been assured by General Smuts and others, to new developments, and in those developments I believe it is possible for Scotland to take a share. I believe that the demand which has been put forward, that a proportion of the mobile labour should be reserved for the local factories, is justified. Whatever one may say, older people, ourselves in this House among them, are not so quick in learning new processes as younger people, with their more nimble fingers. I am sure none of us would like to be piloted by any Member of this House in battle against the enemy in a Lancaster, or even in a Beau-fighter; we would rather be piloted by some boy just out of the university, or even just out of school.
I am sure that that scheme is pressed upon the Secretary of State for Scotland by the hon. Member for West Fife—who has apparently evaporated from this discussion—in season and out of season. Naturally, his creed being what it is, the hon. Member does not recognise any activity which is not accompanied by bangs of some kind or another. He considers such activity divorced from reality. If the Secretary of State were to place shots of dynamite under the chairs of his colleagues, it would no doubt cause a great sensation in Cabinet discussion, but there is no reason to believe that it would forward the cause we have in view.

Mr. Buchanan: They might retaliate.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: If they did, he, being only one, would be shattered to fragments before he had destroyed his colleagues, especially one built on such ample and Cœur de Lion proportions as the Minister of Labour. There is no doubt that a far greater proportion of

Scottish factory space is being used at present, for production and for storage, than was the case a few months ago, and I am sure the Secretary of State will be able to tell us that new industries are being concentrated in Scotland, although it will be quite impossible for him to give details to the House. My hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) asks for not merely assurances, but specific instances. Specific instances would be difficult to give in time of war, but I am sure, as one who has paid some attention to this matter, that development is being advanced as fast as it is in the power of my right hon. Friend to do so. The Ministers whom many of us have interviewed, and continue to interview, are aware of the necessity. Discussions which show that Scotland is keen on such development will, I am sure, strengthen the hands of my right hon. Friend. One or two specific points raised by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) and others are important.
The primary thing is the need for industrial plant and equipment in the North, of which the transfer of labour to the South is merely a symptom. I agree that there are ways in which such transfer could be ameliorated. The position of a girl in the household as a housekeeper might well be the subject of further regulation. That is a position which is recognised in many other fields of industrial life, and might profitably be recognised in this one. Occasionally girls who have been deferred have omitted, not knowing the intricate working of these matters, to claim their deferment, and have been called up almost automatically, without any specific withdrawal of the deferment or notification of the Government's intention, simply because the deferment has run out. The girl thinks that for some reason she has been de-reserved, and she accepts that position. I beg of the right hon. Gentleman in some way or other to call the attention of these girls to their rights under the provisions which this House has made, and make quite clear, more than once if necessary that a deferment is a renewable thing which can be renewed again and again and give them at least the repeated notices that most of us get, when, for some reason or other, we have not found it possible to pay our Income Tax on 1st March. Before we are put into gaol, we find ourselves reminded several times about our duties


to the Government, in increasingly active tones no doubt, but without removing us from our present employment and casting us into employment by the State.
Your administration can be and should be modified, but the big general question, I agree, is that labour must move in order to put out the maximum effort of the war industry. That general principle is conceded in all parts of the House, but the planning should be increasingly brought forward and pursued by means of which the great development of that potential in the Northern Kingdom takes place, has taken place and should take place at a rate increasing above the way it has been running lately. A great deal of the aircraft industry has largely been developed south of the Border, and it has been extended to two or three times the size of the shipbuilding industry, but it is no reason simply for saying other industries are given a greater proportion than in England. It must be a much greater proportion to balance up the enormous development of this trend in industry which has taken place in the Midlands and the centres of motor car production here. Therefore, there must be planning and immediate movement of orders, and then subsequently movement of plant and equipment, and even the movement of structural engineering, of factory buildings, and, it may be, power development such as the hydro-electric power development should not be turned down merely because it would be some time before it could come into fruition. If the war ends, good and well, but we are told on all sides that we must prepare for a long war. Let us look ahead, for much of the present difficulty, we know, is due to the rush, the emergency, the hurry, the fearful pressure to develop at once and immediately every small job and potential which existed in this country. This is very largely the reason why we find ourselves now with this over-concentration of potential in certain areas and not always in areas where it can usefully be developed. The Secretary of State is keenly alive to this, and I am sure that he is pressing on with the utmost diligence of which he is capable.

Mr. Kirkwood: I welcome this Debate. When I raised the question originally in this House the Minister of Labour was good enough to draw attention to the fact that I was prac-

tically alone in this matter, but the House knows to-day that there never was a matter on which the Members of Scotland were so united as they are on this question. It is a very serious question, affecting the life of Scotland. Munitions work to-day, as we understand it, is essentially engineering, and the cradle of engineering is Scotland. The greatest asset of Scotland is its young women. I have visited some of the largest factories in Britain with the Minister of Supply and the Minister of Production. Only three weeks ago I visited factories in my native land with the present Minister of Supply, and there we saw what the Minister of Labour describes as mobile workers. They were at work in Scotland. We saw them in what were formerly carpet factories, and they had had no previous experience whatever in the particular type of machinery they were using. It was in Kilmarnock where we were dreading the application of this method of taking the mobile girls from Scotland. As an engineer, I have seen young women at work who I never dreamed would find it possible inside six months to be able to produce some of the most accurate type of tools that have to be used in the manufacture of aeroplanes.
I do not blame the present Government for what is going on. I protested when they were building these huge factories in England. In wandering through England as I do, I have seen these great factories being erected, and there have not been any erected in Scotland. The employers of labour who were asked to develop along these lines refused to go in for the development of the aeroplane, but it must be remembered that at the inception of the building of the aeroplane we were before England. My late employer built the machinery for the R.34. It is the same with regard to the motor car-industry, and the employers of labour in Scotland allowed all that to go, so that I do not blame the present Secretary of State for Scotland nor the present Minister of Labour, who has been left with a baby to hold. I saw this week-end in this country huge up-to-date factories built on the finest lines, copied from Germany and America, with finished machinery in them but not a single human being. At the same time English colleagues are annoyed because we have the hardihood to stand up here, not because


of any national sentiment at all, although I do not make any apology for the sentiments I have always expressed in this House, and will continue to do so as long as I am able to draw the breath of life. I have always made these appeals, not to the detriment of Britain, but in the interests of the wealth of Britain. How can we sit calmly by, as I have been forced to do, and see the finest raw material in the world being drained away from my native land?
There is another aspect—and all Scottish Members have done all they could to get this remedied—and it is that now that all our young women are going to England the birth-rate in Scotland is decreasing at an alarming rate. Surely it is time the Government did something gigantic, something in a big way, not as a twopenny-halfpenny move or a palliative. We want factories built in Scotland, We have the skill, the finest skill in the world, to produce what is necessary to win this war. Now it is being frittered away. My hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has mentioned the conference which took place in Scotland last weekend. I have said time and time again in our movement that a millionaire is a menace, and it is becoming apparent to me that a powerful trade union leader is becoming a menace. His satellites make speeches in Glasgow, and they think they can do whatever they like. But there are men and women representing the Scottish race, in this House and outside, who are of independent minds, and if we cannot raise our voices outside or in the trade union movement, we can do so on the Floor of the House of Commons. I know perfectly well that the House will see to it that we shall have the right to express our point of view here, irrespective of whether trade union officials or anybody else try to dominate us. One thing is certain—they cannot dominate me.
It is no use my throwing bouquets to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, because he knows my estimate of him. The highest honour any Scotsman can attain is to become Secretary of State for Scotland. This high honour has been conferred on him, and with it goes responsibility. I have never heard him raise his voice in this House in the manner we are doing to-day. I have never heard him standing up against the Government. It is because of the support that my right hon. Friend has bad

from his colleagues that he is Secretary of State for Scotland to-day. It is the bounden duty of my right hon. Friend, having listened to hon. Members in all quarters of the House making appeals to him, to let the Cabinet know the sentiments that have been expressed in this Debate condemning Governments that have gone before. It is all very well for the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove to say that we have no right to go back. We have to go back. We do not want to go back with a view to causing irritation or any split—we do not want to do anything of the kind—but in this case we have to lay the blame where it should be in order that we may get those who are in power now to tell the Cabinet what Scottish Members have said in this Debate—to tell the Cabinet that we will not sit idly by and see our country being; depleted of its womenfolk in this way. It is apparent to me, after being here for 20 years, that, as a result of this war, one after another of the rights—not the privileges, but the rights—that our race has struggled for through the centuries are gradually being filched from us. We heard to-day the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour announcing that our boys of 18 are to be conscripted. Will anybody tell me that if it had been a Tory who stood at that Box and made that statement, these Benches would have remained silent? I do not believe a word of it.

Mr. McEntee: Why?

Mr. Kirkwood: My hon. Friend does not need to ask me why. He knows why perfectly well. It is only too true and too obvious that if a Tory had announced the things which the Minister of Labour has announced, this House would have been in an uproar. Several of us, Mr. Speaker, as you know from experience, would in all probability have been required to be emptied out. It is no laughing matter. It is a very serious accusation that I am making and I know perfectly well what it implies. But the place in which to make these statements is this House, and not outside where there can be no reply made to them. That is one of the privileges of the House, that he who dares and has the opportunity to express his sentiments, can do so, particularly if he is prepared to pay the price—and I am prepared to pay the


price, whatever it may be. The present Government and the Secretary of State for Scotland recognise, as well as the Minister of Labour does, that Scotland has been wronged in this matter, and, that being the case, it is their duty to see that these wrongs are righted.

Mr. Stephen: I desire to associate my friends with our colleagues from Scotland in their protest with regard to the transfer of girls to England, and the general position with regard to Scottish industry. I feel that the Ministry of Labour has been very badly served in many ways by the administration in Scotland. I attended the meeting of Scottish Members which has been referred to, and I made the comment that I had never seen such unanimity among them on any other occasion. There is a very widespread feeling of anger in the country. It has not been engineered by political means but is the expression of very great resentment on the part of the people everywhere. Last Saturday I heard of a case of a girl at Ardrossan who kept house for her father, and there were three young children. The Committee gave her three months and told her that at the end of that time her father would have to find a housekeeper. I do not think the Ministry want that sort of thing to happen at all, but it is happening. In another case the suggestion was made that, if a person could not be found to look after the girl's invalid father, she could put him into an institution. That sort of thing has done tremendous harm; and the Minister should see to it that the administration is made much more humane. Officials and members of committees have to realise that the exigencies of war cannot be used to allow them to become petty Hitlers. If young women can get jobs in local war industries, there should not be so much difficulty about their being allowed to take them, and in that way I believe a great many difficulties would be overcome.
I made a proposal to the Secretary of State previously that he should have a committee of Scottish Members meeting in Scotland during periods of Recess. The Secretary of State has a Council with him in Scotland, and it would be a help to him if he had a committee of Scottish Members which would receive reports from the Council of Ministers and have some days

of discussion on Scottish problems. If the Secretary of State will not give me all I desire in a separate Legislature in Scotland with financial control, the committee I have suggested would be a half-way house and might do something to ease the situation in Scotland. I desire to support my Scottish colleagues in the protest that they have made to-day and to hope that there will be some alleviation of the distressful situation that has arisen in Scotland.

Mr. Mathers: The Scottish Members form the most diversified group of individuals that is to be found in the House. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) is right, however, in saying that on this matter there is unanimity in claiming that all that is possible to be done shall be done in order to provide work in Scotland, so that the draining away of our young womanhood to the South of the Border, which we all deplore, shall be prevented and that the current shall be reversed and the young women brought back at the earliest possible moment or, at least, given the opportunity of coming back to their native land. In making two points, I do not want it to be imagined that I do not endorse many of the things that have been said by my colleagues. I hope that one point will be listened to by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, because I noticed that when it was being put to the House by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), the Parliamentary Secretary's attention was otherwise engaged. I will repeat what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman said. It was in relation to the postponement that is given by the hardship committees.
There is, as he knows nothing at that place on the document that is handed to the applicant to show that after the deferment date, which is put in in ink, has been reached, there is the possibility of a still further deferment being granted if application is made in due time, that is, some considerable time before that date is reached. The right hon. Member for Kelvingrove made the point that it should be made clear to girls who get a certain period of deferment that if their circumstances are such that they require a further deferment they ought to apply at a particular date in order that consideration may be given to their circumstances and further deferment granted.
The other point is this: Much has been said about empty factories, or partially empty factories, in Scotland not being used to the fullest extent for industrial purposes at the present time. I know that inquiries were made about such factories. Particulars of them were gathered and tabulated, and they were registered for storage purposes and the like. My point is, Can we help those who have this particular problem under review at the present time by asking local authorities to press upon the Secretary of State for Scotland, or whoever will accept communications, the desirability of using those factories for industrial purposes in-order that Scottish girls may be employed instead of being sent away to England? May I put it the other way? Is it well enough known to the Government that those factories exist, is all the information that is required known about them, and can they, without any further efforts on the part of the Scottish local authorities, Members of Parliament or anyone else, see that the space and equipment available are put to use whenever the opportunity arises? Those are the two points that I wanted to make, and I hope that we may have from the Government Bench a reply to much of what has been said here to-day by Scottish Members. I know how deeply this position is felt in Scotland. I am not suggesting that I have any peculiar knowledge in that regard, but I believe the position is known to every Scottish Member, and I know that in Scotland there is deep earnestness and great concern about this problem.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): We have had, I think, a very useful discussion, one which will be to the benefit of the Scottish people, if only for the reason that for once, at all events, there has been a cordial unanimity of purpose displayed by all parties and sections in this House. I do not seek to disguise, indeed I never have disguised, the fact that I dislike the compulsory transfer of girls from their homes to work in factories South of the Border. That dislike is, I should say, shared by every other member of this Government, including the present Minister of Labour, but we must get our facts in proper perspective. The present arrangement whereby girls are transferred to work in English factories is not a wicked, malicious plot against the Scottish fireside;

it is not a deliberate policy of breaking up the Scottish home. It directly follows from the iron necessities of war. Whatever may be said—and a great deal can be said—about the original planning of shadow factories and their siting, the fact remains that those shadow factories are not in Scotland. The fact remains also that aero engines are urgently required for the purposes of war. Therefore the policy of transferring girls has been carried out. I repeat that no girl under 20 has been transferred. This policy of transferring female labour, as it is called, to work in those necessary factories to produce material so urgently required for the prosecution of the war has been made necessary. While that is true, it is also true that every possible precaution has been taken to ensure the comfort and safety of these girls. No hon. Member has said one word in criticism of the welfare arrangements that the Ministry of Labour have in being in England.

Mr. Neil Maclean: It can be said.

Mr. Johnston: I said that nobody had said it.

Mr. Maclean: Be honest.

Mr. Johnston: I have sat here and listened to some criticisms, and perhaps I may be allowed to state my views. The Church of Scotland have made inquiries; the Scottish Press have sent independent investigators; every letter that came to the Scottish Office, either through a Member of Parliament or direct by way of complaint from a woman worker, was carefully studied, examined and replied to. Although, from the very nature of things, there were slips here and there, particularly at the beginning, it is true to say now, that out of the large number of girls transferred to work in factories South of the Border, fairly adequate and very sympathetic arrangements have been made for their material welfare and comfort.
One hon. Member said that he had not heard any explosions in the Government over differences of opinion upon this matter. Because he has not seen any dead bodies carried out from meetings he would be unwise to assume that the Scottish point of view has not been put. From the time the Council of Industry


was started in February of this year, there has been a steady reduction in the number of women transferred South of the Border. The number is now about half of what it was then. I can say further, I hope without disclosing important information, that there are four areas in Scotland now, into which women are being imported, and there are 24 areas now, out of which there are no transfers compulsorily of women.

Mr. Kirkwood: How long has that been in operation?

Mr. Johnston: I cannot say, but it is now.

Major Lloyd: Why should not the Glasgow area be one of them?

Mr. Buchanan: Why should Glasgow only get all the slums?

Mr. Johnston: Please allow me not to be specific about areas. I am forbidden to mention areas, but I am giving totals, and I am merely saying that the trend has been towards a diminution in the numbers of transfers South of the Border. In addition to the investigations which I have already said are being conducted into every possible allegation of hardship once a girl has been transferred, we have offers, and I am very glad to welcome them, from Scots clubs, Caledonian societies and so on, in the Midlands of England. When we receive them at the Scottish Office we place the Ministry of Labour in possession of these offers, and we hope that there will be some kind of home-from-home arranged in as many areas as possible, in the Midlands of this country. I would say if I might to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eastern Renfrew (Major Lloyd) that with a good deal of what he said I most cordially agree, but he ought not to assume that the Government are entirely responsible for the absence of hostel arrangements in the particular area to which he refers. As a matter of fact, I myself was so disturbed about the health conditions which might obtain from these long hours and long travelling that I went and saw the directors of that firm. I did my best to persuade the directors of that organisation to set up a hostel. I want to say no more about it than that.

Major Lloyd: Surely the answer of the firm would be that the only people who want to use a hostel are the mobile workers? The immobile workers prefer

to remain at home with their husbands and children.

Mr. Johnston: Yes, Sir, but the fact is that if there was decent housing accommodation there we would not be getting letters from Aberdeenshire from girls who beg not to be sent to this particular factory to which my hon. and gallant Friend referred, but prefer to be sent to England where they would have a hostel. That is a contributing factor.

Mr. Buchanan: I want hostels.

Mr. Johnston: I know, but I am dealing with this particular instance which the hon. and gallant Member for Eastern Renfrew has raised, and I say that the state of affairs to which he refers is not entirely a Government responsibility. Most of us now have women relatives who are down South working on Government jobs. I would, in fact, if I had the choice, rather be an employee at a factory where there were decent hostel arrangements than be at home compelled to go to a factory where, between my factory employment and my transport, I had to spend 14½ hours away from home. I ought to say that the many questions which arose about Ministry of Labour operations, hardship committees and so on will be replied to by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, and I would like, if I may be permitted, to deal rather with the long-term efforts that we are making to stop the necessity for transferring girls south of the Border. Unemployment figures are not a very reliable guide these days, owing, first, to the increasing employment of persons not previously engaged on industrial work.
On the other hand, they are not a reliable guide because of the continual intake into the Services from industry. However, since February, this year, unemployment in Scotland has fallen to the lowest figure I remember—from 33,000 to 20,000; and these 20,000 contain physical disability cases and persons in transit from one job to another. I am assured that, for all practical purposes, unemployment in Scotland has ceased. The Scottish Advisory Council on Industry will in a week's time issue its-first report. It started in February, and has had a most active career, and most encouraging results. It would not be fair for me to anticipate what the council will be reporting publicly to its constituent bodies in a week's time.

Mr. Buchanan: Will the report be available to us?

Mr. Johnston: I cannot say, but I think so, I can say that during this year there have been 119 new units of production established in Scotland, employing, or in course of employing, 25,000 workers. A unit of production is either a completely new undertaking—that is, a new building, with new factory processes going on in it—or an extension of existing premises, or existing premises which have been converted to an entirely new form of war production. There are 18 new undertakings, 37 extensions of existing business, and 64 conversions of existing premises to other forms of production. Some of these conversions will, I hope, have post-war permanency; and they will employ, and are employing, more labour than the processes on which the factories were previously engaged. In addition, there are eight new units under active consideration. They will employ 900 workers. There are four other new units, which will involve new buildings and the employment of 1,200 workers. Then there is a large-scale new works, of which I am not at liberty to say anything to-day. There may have been more, but I understand that some private firms in England have been deterred from going on even under pressure because of the story that Scottish Workers and managements are disinclined to adapt themselves to new processes. What nonsense.

Mr. Boothby: Cannot they be compelled to go if the Government think that they ought to go under the powers they have been given by this House?

Mr. Johnston: If they are munitions of war factories, yes, but they are not munitions of war factories that I am speaking of now. It is not true that Scottish workers and managements are disinclined to adapt themselves to new processes. I believe that nowhere in the world is there a greater adaptability. We have had to adapt ourselves. Here is the final answer to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart). In 1941 we had 500,000 square feet of factory space allotted to production by the Factory and Storage Control. By the end of April, 1942, that was up to 1,500,000; by the end of July, 1942, it was up to 2,500,000 square feet, and in the months of August

and September there was another 642,000 square feet allotted to production. I do not want to say anything about the causes of our depression.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: The right hon. Gentleman has told us about new factories, which is welcome news, but would he tell us what he or his Council does to prevent the closing down by orders of the Board of Trade of quite considerable firms, one of which is in my constituency at the moment, employing several hundreds, and who have a very good claim to be continued?

Mr. Johnston: I thought I had covered that by saying a report by the Council on Industry would be available for publication in about a week's time, and it would be unfair for me, on my part, to seek to anticipate what they are going to say, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Advisory Council on Industry try to ensure wherever there is a nucleus of production that that nucleus, as far as possible, be established in Scotland. We have taken active and energetic steps in at least 20 instances with the Departments down here, and in the overwhelming number of them we have been successful. I cannot say that there should not be concentration. If there is a town in which there are four companies producing the same commodities and none is working at full pressure, if they are all working, say, at half pressure, we cannot stand in the way of concentration of these processes into two of the factories, leaving two new buildings. What we say is that we take every step we can to get new industries into the two new buildings and that the two remaining factories producing the old commodity should be allowed to continue working at full pressure.
I can only say, that on behalf of the Government, I welcome this discussion. I wish there were more of them. It would greatly strengthen our hands and assist us in endeavouring to undo what was undoubtedly a serious, a grievous wrong inflicted upon industrial Scotland. It was an inadvertent wrong. I do not believe that it was done maliciously, but it was done, and we have to do the best we can to retrace our steps and to ensure" that when this war is over we start out with a better chance of survival as an industrial nation than we had at the end of the last war.

Mr. Mathers: Before my right hon. Friend sits down, can he answer the point I put to him about the information that is available with regard to these empty factories?

Mr. Johnston: There is the most elaborate information about all these factories.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. McCorquodale): The Secretary of State has asked me to intervene and answer, if I can, some of the specific points which have been raised with reference to labour during the Debate. May I first refer to the point raised by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers) and my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) about the notice on the deferment papers with regard to renewal. I will look into that point, although I am under the impression that there is printed at the bottom of the form a statement that application should be made within 14 days of the run-out of the deferment if renewal is required.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: What I suggested was that some reminder should be given to the girl of the run-out and power to renew. It is true that it is on the form, but three months afterwards the girl has perhaps not applied her mind to it and consequently has not applied for deferment.

Mr. Stephen: Very often the girl thinks her employer will do it.

Mr. McCorquodale: I will certainly see if it is administratively possible. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) raised points about hardship—a question which was largely dealt with in the previous Debate on this subject, which was so well opened by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). In general, I am convinced that the hardship tribunals are endeavouring to carry out the statutory obligations laid upon them by this House with as much sympathy and care as possible but if there are cases where hon. Members think that is not so, the Minister or I will be very willing to take them up. With regard to the cases where movement is under the Registration of Employment Order, the independent women's panels, in the first place, assess women as mobile or immobile, and it may be interesting to the House to know that,

taking the supply regions as a whole—that is, the regions which supply workers to other regions—about 50 per cent. of the unmarried women who have been interviewed have been classed as mobile. When we come to Scotland, we find that the women's panel has classed only about 40 per cent. as mobile and 60 per cent. as immobile, showing that on this point, at any rate, more consideration is given in Scotland than in England.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eastern Renfrew (Major Lloyd) raised one or two questions of principle and related them to one firm. I think everybody will agree that it is the duty of the Ministry of Labour and National Service to mobilise the men and women of this country to the full for the war effort, and that we cannot regard Scotland differently from the rest of the British Isles in this matter. Nor, I am sure, will Scotland wish to be classed as a special area with special privileges which are not given to England and Wales. Many parts of Scotland are now classed as areas from which no persons are moved. Some areas are now classed as importing areas, and mobile girls when available will be moved to them as required. But other areas in Scotland are not so full of work that they can use all their present immobile labour, and in these cases we cannot allow mobile girls to stay and take local jobs while immobile labour is available.

Major Lloyd: That does not answer the point I tried very hard to make, that there is a demand for several hundred women, preferably mobile women, from a most important war factory, and they are unable to obtain them. Is that right?

Mr. McCorquodale: With regard to the special case mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend, I would only say that it would seem to me to be quite impossible to run efficiently a labour policy if we are to be expected to change or vary that labour policy because some big and important firm can get the ear of a Member of Parliament from the area to raise the matter here.

Major Lloyd: Surely, that is not the question. They are, indeed fortunate to have their case presented here, but it ought never to have been brought to that. The matter ought to have been dealt with by the Ministry beforehand.

Mr. McCorquodale: My hon. and gallant Friend is asking the Ministry of Labour to vary their policy of moving mobile girls out of areas where immobile girls are available, with special reference to this factory. I regard that as asking for a special favour for this factory, and I say it is impossible to run efficiently a comprehensive man-power policy if we are to give way to special cases of this kind.

Mr. Maclean: Is it not the case that in the factory to which reference has been made, there are jobs for those several hundred girls even though they are classified as mobile workers, and that there are not sufficient mobile workers to go there to work constantly at the job without a lot of absenteeism, in the same area? That is the point that has to be answered.

Mr. McCorquodale: The man-power position of the factory in question is under constant supervision from the Supply Department concerned and the Ministry of Labour, and from time to time the preference afforded to the factory, as to other factories, with regard to the supply of labour, varies. Recently, an increased flow of labour has been sent to that factory, not at my hon. and gallant Friend's request, but at the request of the Ministry concerned. In conclusion, I would only say that it is quite obvious that the Ministry of Labour do not move people about for the fun of the thing, considering all the work and cost involved. The last thing we wish is for labour to be moved unless it is absolutely necessary, and it is our constant endeavour, as it is that of the Secretary of State for Scotland, to impress upon the Production Departments the necessity of sending new work to Scotland and to the other areas where immobile labour is at present available, and we will continue that pressure until their demands are satisfied. The position is very much better than it was, and I am sure the House will have noticed that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, in answer to a Question the other day, replied that, as far as is practicable, if girls have to be moved back to Scotland, as well may be the case when the proposed factories which are at present planned come into full operation in Scotland, Scottish girls will get first preference in being moved back North of the Border.

WAR AND PEACE AIMS

Earl Winterton: I desire to raise a matter which I have given notice I would raise and in which other hon. Members on both sides of the House are interested. There is not very much time left and I wish to give sufficient time for a reply by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and for the speeches of other hon. Members who are interested. This matter arose quite unexpectedly out of an answer to a Question. It might not have attracted much attention at the time but for the fact that I gave notice that I would raise it on the Adjournment, and I take full responsibility for that, because, however little notice is taken of the Question at the time, or however little interest is taken in the Debate afterwards, it should never be forgotten that reports of the proceedings of this House are read all over the world and statements made in Debates are broadcast everywhere. The greatest possible error that the Government or the people in the countries of our Allies could commit is to think that this is a war of one or two countries. It is nothing of the sort. It is a war of a large number of countries, with wholly different social systems and often differing points of view, but with a common viewpoint on the most important question of all, the defeat of Nazism and its counterpart in Japan.

The Question was based on the recent utterances of two distinguished Ambassadors. I do not wish, directly or by implication, to attack those utterances, though one was adversely commented upon in a friendly country, perhaps owing to misinterpretation of its purpose. I have no Wish either to attack the Under-Secretary's answer. I only suggest that it needs some clarification. My hon. Friend's position in the Christian world, and I hope I may add mine as a member of the Church of England, and a communicant should be sufficient evidence that we do not seek in any way to diminish the force and fervour of Christian principles, but a very lengthy background of official and unofficial experience of the Middle East and India has taught me the tremendous importance, of having regard to the strength of conviction of men of other religions. My hon. Friend asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
whether, in view of recent pronouncements by His Majesty's Ambassadors to the United States of America and Spain, respectively,


when the issues of the war were defined as the establishment of Christian civilisation and Christian brotherhood and, in view of the divergent attitudes to religion held by governments of the United Nations and the fact that millions of Jews, Hindus, Moslems, Rationalists and Atheists are engaged in prosecuting the war, he will indicate to representatives of His Majesty's Government that the war and peace aims of the United Nations should be expressed in the broad and generally accepted terms of the Atlantic Charter and not as the exclusive concern of Christianity or any particular body of religious faith?

I cannot see any objection to that statement of the position. It seems to me that my hon. Friend's words were admirably chosen. This was the Under-Secretary's answer:
No, Sir,

which obviously implies a direct negative to my hon. Friend's thesis. It could have no other meaning. He went on:
Though the Atlantic Charter remains the authoritative expression of the war aims of His Majesty's Government, I think my hon. Friend would admit that the Charter falls within the broad principles of Christianity, as would I hope, any other aims to which His Majesty's Government subscribe.

I do not understand the last part of the answer. It seems to have no relevance to the main point. My hon. Friend went on to ask:
Are we to take it, therefore, that missionaries are no longer required to take Christianity to the other nations who are fighting in this war; and, seeing that we state that the aims of the war are for Christian civilisation, is it not extremely incongruous that the majority who are fighting are not Christians?

The Under-Secretary replied:
I do not think that those who are fighting on the side of the Allies, at any rate, would dissent from the proposition that they were righting for principles for which Christian civilisation itself stands."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th October, 1942; cols. 1501–2, Vol. 383.]

I do not want to comment on that reply, except to repeat, at the risk of boring the House, that we have in the British Empire a minority of Christians compared with adherents of other religions—a considerable minority. For example, there are over 100,000,000 Moslem inhabitants in the Empire and vast numbers of Hindus and adherents of other religions. I think, therefore, that the whole trend of my hon. Friend's answer was, I will not say unfortunate, but likely to give rise to misconception.

I would venture, like my hon. Friend the Member for West Leyton (Mr. Sorensen) to lay down a thesis and invite the

Under-Secretary to say whether he sees anything wrong in it. There are points that should be brought out in this matter, which is a far greater difficulty than people realise. I do not want to comment on the speech of a distinguished statesman recently, but words about the Crusade and about fighting for the Cross do reach the ears of our Moslem fellow subjects. Anyone who has lived, as I have lived, with Moslems as a comrade in arms and shared their food, can realise the strength of their religious convictions. I do not want to explain what appears to be the antithesis between the fact that our Lord is one of the prophets to a devout Moslem and the fact that the Cross is to the Moslem the most appalling emblem of blasphemy that can be imagined. When I was with the Arabs we never had the Red Cross on any of our tents or on our Red Cross implements. We always used the sign of the Crescent, because the Cross is a symbol of blasphemy for the Moslems. They cannot imagine how a God who sent his Son to earth in the guise of a man should suffer him to be crucified. These are delicate matters to refer to, but they should be referred to in Debate. This country is not as religious as it was, but there still remain countries of the East which are deeply religious and where their religious symbols mean to them more than anything else in the world.

I suggest that when leading statesmen of the Allies are dealing with this difficult and delicate question they should do so something on these lines: There is a viewpoint, common to men and women of all religious faiths in the United Nations, which utterly condemns and abhors the daemonic paganism of the German leaders. I think that it goes much further and that there is a burning hatred among men and women of no religious faith but of ethical principles in those same nations against the sadistic barbarism of Germany and Japan alike. I will give an example of that. It is the fact that both the Japanese in occupied China and the Germans in occupied Russia and Poland have again and again created brothels in country districts and small towns where such things were unknown and filled them with the female inhabitants in the country, who have been seized and sent there against their will. That is a cause of the greatest offence and horror, not only to the people who profess


the Christian faith in those place, but to people, for example, of the Moslem faith and to people with no religious faith but with a belief in ethical principles.

This is said, very truly, to be a war between conflicting ideals which go to the deepest roots of human aspirations, and therefore I say, in conclusion, that we need to broad-base our appeal to world religious and moral opinion, and not to perch it on the single foundation of any one creed or religion, however much we believe in it and are proud to believe in it. Field-Marshal Smuts, in his address yesterday, used some words to the effect that Hitler was trying to trample on the Cross. I think that the Moslems who are fighting for the British Empire would say that he is also trying to trample on the Crescent, trying to trample on everything that is symbolic of religion and morality and good feeling throughout the world. We shall not defeat him by talking of Christian crusades or even of Christian civilisation; it must be a much more broad-based appeal. In that way we shall destroy this great horror which has come to the earth.

Mr. Sorensen: I appreciate what the noble Lord has said about the content of my own Question which was put some time ago, and I hope that other hon. Members will also appreciate the valiant honesty of the Noble Lord in raising this question and asking us all to address ourselves to what, I am sure, is from more angles than one a very important question indeed. We all take it, as I do myself, that Nazi-ism and Fascism are a philosophy of life, if it can be called that, of a very desperate, cruel and degenerate character, and all of us are looking forward to the time when they will be shattered and the decencies of life will emerge once more and take their place in the hearts and minds of men and women. Yet it is surely a false syllogism to suggest that because Nazi-ism and Fascism are opposed to Christianity, therefore all who are not Nazis or Fascists must be Christians, which is the assumption that so many people make. It is true that the part is in the whole and that the whole is not in the part, and although it can be said that he who is not against us is for us, surely that does not mean that he who is not against us therefore subscribes to the Thirty-Nine Articles

of the Church of England. That does not follow at all.
We have to recognise, as the Noble Lord has pointed out, that the majority of those in the British Empire alone, and for that matter among the United Nations, are non-Christians, and it would be extremely embarrassing to the Premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to suggest that in addition to his acceptance of the Atlantic Charter he was also by his alliance with us indirectly subscribing to the Athanasian Creed. If it were necessary for him to pledge himself to Christian principles, and to involve his country too, he would soon make very earnest representations to those who tried to involve him. It is true, as the noble Lord has said, that there have been representations in certain quarters, in particular in Turkish quarters, against the interpretation put on certain statements in the way the Noble Lord has described. Indeed, I suggest that Members of this House are put in some embarrassment. There are members of the Goyernment—not of the War Cabinet as far as I know, but certainly members of the Government—who may be atheists, and one I know is a prominent and very earnest and able exponent of rationalism. There may be some who are Jews There may be some who would subscribe to the Marxian philosophy of life, which it would be very difficult to reconcile with some of the elements of Christianity, although not with others".
In those circumstances, I suggest that the House is put in some embarrassment when there is this all-too-easy suggestion that this is a simple struggle, as some would have it, between Christianity on the one hand and, by inference, non-Christianity on the other. Indeed, if an analysis were made of the various elements and faiths behind or associated with the United Nations at the present time, even a rough analysis, we should find it very interesting to discover how many are non-Christian, being of another faith, or of no faith whatsoever.
I have spoken of our own House; may I speak of our own country? We recognise that only some 20 per cent. of our people actually attend church, and although it does not mean that the other 80 per cent. are non-Christian it does suggest that there is some question whether they are Christian in the very


definite sense of the term. There are many in our midst who are Jews or who are Unitarian, Spiritualist, Christian Scientist and who would, from some standpoints, be denounced by an orthodox Christian. From other standpoints also they might not be included by some within the general term "Christian." On the other hand, I am aware that the average man who joins the Fighting Forces, if he has no particular faith or is indifferent, is classified as "C. of E.," whatever that may stand for, but that applies also to other people who have to join other institutions of His Majesty of a less desirable and attractive character. But this is nominal and not necessarily of Christian significance.
May I give some figures? They are rough, I admit, but they are not very far out. They relate to the nations who "re concerned in this war and are within the general organisation of the United Nations. Take our own population at 48,000,000 and classify them all as Christians, a very doubtful procedure. Put on top of that figure the 133,000,000 of the United States of America as Christian, again very doubtful, because there are large numbers of Jews in the United States as well as other people who are not Christian; then we may put on another 100,000,000 who are in other nations—the Netherlands, Norway and the South American nations. Put on another 25,000,000 from the Dominions and reckon 45,000,000 as Christian out of the total of 90,000,000 black Colonials who are British subjects. We then have a total of about 340,000,000.
On the other hand, among the United Nations we have the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with a population of some 170,000,000. I am aware that in that country are many people who still practice their Orthodox Christian faith, but if we are to go by general representation, then, as we classified this country as Christian though many people in it are not, we must accept the fact that the U.S.S.R. is, officially, non-Christian. There are the Indian Moslems. According to the assurance of the Prime Minister, they number some 95,000,000. It is not for me to doubt the Prime Minister's figures, although I have questioned them on other occasions. Those people are certainly not Christians. There are some 280,000,000 of Hindus, Parsees, and

members of other faiths in India, and approximately some 15,000,000 Burmese Buddhists, who, one presumes, might well be classified as "belonging to us." Then there are some 430,000,000 Chinese, an interesting mixture of Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism, at least some 45,000,000 pagans and non-Christian coloured Colonials in the Colonial Empire. They make a total of over 1,000,000,000. It means that, roughly speaking, there are three non-Christians to one Christian. If one went further and recognised the importance of the friendly nations of Turkey and of Egypt, we might find there another 30,000,000 odd who, of course, profess the Moslem faith and cannot be classified as really belonging to Christian civilisation.
I do not deny, nor would anyone deny, that there are elements in all these faiths which are in common, but I suggest that it is quite wrong for us to try to bundle together all the virtues of the world and classify them with our own particular label. Kindliness, courage, honour and duty are virtues of which Christianity has no monopoly. We find them in other faiths as well, and it is simply playing with words to take all those truly human and desirable virtues, put a label on them and pretend that by labelling them "Christian" we are making all those people Christian. It makes confusion worse confounded, and I would submit therefore we have to be honest in these matters. That is why I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord who has helped to bring us back to honesty and to recognise that although there are elements in Christianity which are also in the purposes of the Atlantic Charter, and possibly in this war, it would be quite wrong and misleading to assume they are fully or exclusively Christian.

It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Major Sir James Edmondson.]

Mr. Sorensen: I will continue by saying that it seems to me quite false to try and identify those virtues common to so many human races simply with Christianity. If I may add one word, which may be divergent from those of the Noble Lord, to me, personally, Christianity at its highest goes beyond those virtues. I cannot expound


this now, but nevertheless would submit the Christian faith is not yet fully accepted even by the great majority of nominally Christian people. One day we shall reach that stage and we shall then begin to practice what I believe is the redemptive technique of the Christian faith, still not greatly assimilated or appreciated. For though the war from a political standpoint may have been inevitable no one can suggest that the highest processes of Christianity, its highest ethical elements, should be intermingled with the inevitable tragedies and grossness of war. I beg the Under-Secretary to recognise that he will be doing a great disservice to Christianity if there is this very easy identification of Christianity at its highest with these grim and often sordid processes in which we are engaged at the present time. I know it has often been done in the past. I remember that St. Bernard of Clairvaux could write mystical poetry of the highest order and yet promote bloody crusades against the Saracens. We all know of Luther, a great protagonist of the Protestant faith who could yet butcher the peasants in the Peasants' Revolt. There was Cromwell, who was a great Puritan, but who could deal death and destruction to the Irish. We are all creatures of mixed motives and involved in tragic inconsistencies. Though the war involves us all more or less, I hope that the ultimate values in Christianity will be kept apart as something to which the race is steadily moving although it has not achieved them as yet.
There are varying interpretations of this war. One is that it is a war for survival; another that it is a war for power; another that it is a war for democracy. Some allege it is a war for God. I would not say that myself, because though God moves in a mysterious way I dislike bringing sacred names into the terrible processes of war. I will confine myself to this assertion, that with the peoples of all the United Nations whether they be Russian Marxist or Mohammedan, Jew or Christian, there should be a certain common denominator and that we should seek to preserve that common denominator. It is so easy for elements even in that common denominator to be swept aside. As a war proceeds the highest purposes with which it was begun gradually fade or become diluted and poisoned until at last, even before the war is ended, men and women have almost forgotten exactly what the war may be about or the high

purpose accepted in the beginning. I hope that in the course of this war certain ethical elements will be preserved by this country, precisely because I believe this country can be a great country, a great Britain in the real sense; great not so much in terms of military success and victory and territorial aggrandisement, but in terms of ethical and social example to the world. Because I believe that, in that sense, our country has a great mission to fulfil, I hope we shall recognise that the Christian religion is not yet dominant and that, while still keeping our Christian faith until the peoples of the world can appreciate it more, we shall avoid hypocrisy, by saying, "These are the things for which the nations stand; these are the things, therefore, which when the war is over we hope will still live." For that reason, I hope earnestly that we shall prefer to interpret this war in terms of the Atlantic Charter and of the decencies of life, and leave individuals, groups and minorities to add to that and expand their faith in ways they think best.

Captain De Chair: I did not know that the Noble Lord was going to raise this matter to-day, and I hope he will not mind if I, who have the same affection as he has for the Moslems, say a word. I could not help feeling when listening to him that there was a danger, if the House followed quite logically the argument which he was trying to lay down, that we should acquire a distorted view of this problem. What would the Noble Lord's argument lead to? It would lead to our conducting a war of material aims, from which the core of faith had been removed.

Earl Winterton: The hon. and gallant Gentleman really must not misinterpret what I said. I distinctly laid it down that it was not a question of material aims. He cannot have listened to a word of my speech. I never heard such a travesty of a speech.

Captain De Chair: I did not wish to imply that there was no question of spiritual aims in the Noble Lord's war conduct. What I said was that if logically carried out, it would lead to a position in which we should have to remove from every statement of war aims the expression of Christian principles. That is a fair comment on his speech, to which I listened with great care. Let me quote a great materialist. Napoleon said, on


27th August, 1808, I think, when writing from Saint-Cloud:
"A la guerre, les trois quarts sont des affaires morales; la balance des forces réelles, n'est que pour un autre quart."
May I translate that as "In war moral factors count for three parts, and material for only one"?
If moral factors count for three times the material and if our morale is to be influenced by the announcement of war aims surely the statement of Christian principles must play a large part in maintaining our combatant spirit. From my experience of the Arabs in the Middle East, I do not think they will pay much attention to what we say about the religious purposes for which we are fighting. They are Moslems, and Christianity to them, therefore, is anathema. They will not be influenced by declarations of Christian principles, enunciated by Christian war lords—if I may use the term. They are fighting for their own ideals. If we were to analyse the forces motivating all the United Nations, we would find that in each the religion of their country and of their own race plays a large part in their war aims. Therefore, I do not think that any conflict of opinion will arise between ourselves and the Moslems through our enunciating in our war aims a statement of those Christian principles, for which, surely, the British in the fighting line are fighting.

Mr. Driberg: I wish to speak very briefly, as a member of the Church of England, in support of the Noble Lord. I think that the difficulty between the Noble Lord and the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for South-West Norfolk (Captain De Chair) can be resolved very simply in this way. We are surely fighting, broadly, for the system of beliefs and the way of life defined by President Roosevelt as the Four Freedoms. One of these four freedoms is freedom of conscience, which, of course, includes both freedom of a member of any religious body or denomination to practise his own religion and also freedom for those who do not believe in any religion, to maintain their own anti-religious or non-religious attitude, as indeed it is defined also under the Soviet Constitution which says "Freedom of religious worship and anti-religious propaganda."

Mr. Sorensen: Not religious propaganda.

Mr. Driberg: I am quoting the exact words. Surely that is what freedom of conscience is in the Four Freedoms defined by President Roosevelt. Those of us who are Christians within the United Nations can perfectly well regard our war effort as a crusade, because, undoubtedly, the Axis, Nazi-ism and Fascism stand for something totally opposed to Christianity at its best. But I suggest we should hot attempt to impose that idea or that word upon our comrades in the United Nations who are not Christians, whether they be Moslems or atheists or anything else. There is also, frankly, a certain danger in the over-insistence on what may be called the Christian front that we shall play into the hands of a small group of propagandists here in this country who are concerned to establish what is called the Latin Bloc, which, in my view, as an idea for the reconstruction of Europe, would be fatal to all the principles for which we, are in fact fighting. May I, finally, warn the hon. Gentleman who will be replying on behalf of the Government against falling into the same error—indeed heresy—that was displayed in the answer to the Question which the Noble Lord read? I ask him not to refer to "what are broadly understood as Christian principles" or anything of that kind, when what is obviously meant is the humanistic principles which are common to all world religions and higher philosophies. Christianity is a body of doctrine as well as an ethical system, and you cannot divorce the ethic from the doctrine.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Richard Law): I am very sorry if I have somewhat to curtail this Debate. I have no wish to do so at all, but these issues which the Noble Lord has raised are of some considerable importance, and, as he said, of some delicacy, and it is necessary that there should be some reply to the Debate from the Government. I am very grateful to my Noble Friend for raising this matter in this Debate, and certainly I have no complaint whatever to make of the manner in which he has raised it or indeed of the line which any of my hon. Friends who have intervened in this Debate have taken. It is quite clear from what my hon. Friend and others have


said that there is some misunderstanding on this question inside the House. No doubt there is equal misunderstanding outside the House and, indeed, outside this country, and it is of the greatest importance that the situation should be clarified so far as I can clarify it. My hon. Friend rather implied that I did something less than justice to the thesis of my hon. Friend the Member for West Leyton (Mr. Sorensen). If I did I was wrong, but I do not think I did an injustice to my hon. Friend's thesis. Certainly I did not intend to do so. What I questioned then and what I question now was not his thesis but his premises. However admirable and truthful a thesis may be, if it is based upon false premises, I do not think it should pass unanswered. With great respect, I thought—and still think—that my hon. Friend's thesis, admirable though it is, was based on false premises. For my hon. Friend implies in his Question that Lord Halifax and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare) in the speeches of which he complains stated that the war aims of the United Nations were the exclusive concern of Christianity. They said nothing of the kind. I have read again with some care——

Mr. Sorensen: I did not say that.

Mr. Law: Well, my hon. Friend in his Question asked my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary
… to indicate to, representatives of His Majesty's Government that the war and peace aims of the United Nations should be expressed in the broad terms of the Atlantic Charter and not as the exclusive concern of Christianity or any particular body of religious faith.
That was the implication underlying in the Question—that Lord Halifax and my right hon. Friend had stated these aims as the exclusive concern of Christianity. Now I am telling my hon. Friend that that is not the case. As I was saying, I have read again the speeches of which he complains. I have read them with some care, and I hope—although I am not altogether certain—that hon. Members who have been critical of them have read them with equal care. What Lord Halifax did say was that the institutions which we in this country share with the United States of America derive from a Christian ancestry and a common ancestry. I do not think anyone can object to that or deny it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea drew attention to the common heritage of

Christian culture to which, as he said, Europe owed at least part of its historic unity, and went on to say that Europe might draw common inspiration from the past. The first is a statement of fact and the second is a legitimate deduction from that fact. The speeches of Lord Halifax and my right hon. Friend maintained that the objectives for which the United Nations are fighting are Christian objectives, and I do not think anyone would deny that. But that is not the same thing as saying that these objectives are exclusively Christian and that only Christians can share these objectives and faith. Obviously, that is not the case, and there is nothing in either of those speeches that in any way denies the universality of the ideals for which we are fighting. Everybody holds those ideas—Moslems, Christians and the members of every, religion. They are not exclusively Christian, and nothing in those two speeches either stated or implied that they were.

Dr. Haden Guest: Except the fact that there was no reference made to any other religion—which is a very important thing.

Mr. Law: I think it has to be remembered, in view of the interjection of my hon. Friend the Member for North Islington (Dr. Guest), that the two speakers are both Christian men, representatives of a Christian King and a Christian country, and speaking to a Christian audience; so that there was nothing strange in the fact that they should speak in Christian terms. The plain fact is that there are certain standards of value, certain standards of truth, certain standards of absolute values, which are common to all the great religions. It is a fact, too, that those standards of value and of truth do not belong to the religion of Woden and of Thor; they do not belong to the faith, if it can be called a faith, which is professed in Nazi Germany. When statesmen of the United Nations speak of the political issues of this war, they speak in their own language, whatever that may be, and nobody finds offence in that. Similarly, when statesmen of the United Nations are speaking of the deeper spiritual issues of the war—and there are deep spiritual issues in this war—they must speak, and can only speak, in terms of their own religion. That does not mean at all that they are denying the religion of anyone else.

Earl Winterton: I do hope that my hon. Friend, in making that statement, will remember that when the Prime Minister or an Ambassador speaks on these matters, he is speaking not only for this country but for millions of our fellow-subjects in all parts of the world—Jews, Moslems, Hindus and men of no religion. I hope my hon. Friend will not pursue his line of argument, because I think it is a most dangerous one.

Mr. Law: I am grateful to my Noble Friend for his interjection, although if he had shown a little more patience, I think I would have been able to meet his point without the interjection. I was saying that it is a natural thing to speak of religious issues in terms of one's own religion, whatever it may be. I was going on to say that in the United Nations, as we all know, there are great varieties of nationality, great varieties of race, great varieties of religious belief. In the British Commonwealth, as we all know, and as my Noble Friend pointed out, there are the same great varieties, and as he said, Christians are in fact in a minority in the British Commonwealth; but I am sure that, whether in the British Commonwealth or whether among the United Nations as a whole, there is a clear understanding as to what the position is. We have never attempted to impose our religious beliefs upon our fellow subjects in the British Commonwealth and we never will attempt to do so. Equally, I cannot see why anyone should suppose that we would try to impose our own methods of thought, upon religion or upon any other subject, on the United Nations. There is no question of our doing so, and we shall never attempt to do it. I hope that what I have just said does, in some way at any rate, meet the point which my Noble Friend very rightly tried to bring out.
My Noble Friend said he hoped we should not try to base ourselves upon the narrow foundation of a single creed, and I hope I have shown that we are not trying to do so. Even when we state the

case in terms of the Christian religion, we are not placing it solely on that basis and we are not denying the fact that all these principles which we have been discussing have a far wider base than that of the Christian religion by itself, for they are common to all the great religions. Whatever we are, Christians, Moslems, Jews, Atheists, or Rationalists, we are fighting for the same things and against the same things. We are fighting against barbarism and against the denial of all standards of value. We are fighting for those things which the wisest of mankind, of every race and every religion in every age, have always fought for; and we are all fighting together. We are all in the same fight. I hope it is not necessary to emphasise that any more. It is a fact.
My Noble Friend said he had some experience of the Middle East and of India, but that was an under-statement. He has had great experience. He has had far greater experience than I have, and he has far greater experience of this House than I have. But this I affirm and this I assert, and I will risk my Noble Friend's disagreement. Neither in the East nor in the West, neither in this House nor outside it, does a man or a people forfeit respect by stating with candour and truth and honesty the things that they believe in. The Moslems do not despise us because we profess our Christian belief. We do not despise the Moslem because he professes the faith of Islam. Sometimes I think, looking back over the last 20 years, we have fallen into error. We have not realised that what forfeits respect is being afraid to state our beliefs in the hope of gaining respect, I hope that in the future we shall avoid that error, that we shall be willing to state what we believe in, that we shall be willing to work for it and, as is unfortunately the case now, that we shall be willing to fight for it.

It being the hour appointed for the Adjournment of the House, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.